Libya

Artists from Libya, where Andalusi song, Saharan repertoire and Tuareg guitar meet along one coast and one desert.

Libyan music tends to get described through its neighbours, which undersells it. The coastal cities carry a version of the maluf, the Andalusi tradition shared with Tunisia, performed by a small ensemble and treated as the country’s classical music. Inland and to the south the repertoire is Saharan and Tuareg, and the guitar tradition filed here under Desert Blues has a Libyan branch.

Between the two sits the popular and wedding repertoire that most Libyans actually grew up on.

Long isolation followed by prolonged conflict has kept Libyan artists off the regional circuit and out of most catalogues. There is considerably more here than the record shows.