The Hendrix of the Sahara

The Tuareg rocker was never meant to play guitar. Despite the odds, he managed to make a name for himself, star in an homage to Prince's 'Purple Rain'—and create one of the best rock albums of the year.

The Search for Mdou Moctar, the Hendrix of the Sahara   In the wee hours of morning one day in September 2013 in Agadez, Niger, an ancient market town in the middle of the Sahara, eight cops stormed a mud-brick home searching for a terrorist. There'd been reports of a white man with a bushy beard coming and going on a stolen motorcycle—an unusual sight made stranger by the color of his bike: purple. "Get up! Get up!" the cops shouted as they rustled awake the several men sleeping on the floor.  They found not one but two white men, whom they took away for questioning.  At the police station, Christopher Kirkley, a pensive, close-cropped, thirty-­three-year-old from Portland, Oregon, explained that he and his bearded friend weren't terrorists at all. "We're making a movie!" he said in broken French. It was the first one ever shot not only in Agadez but in the language of the Tuareg, the seminomadic people who'd roamed the region for centuries. The star of the film was one of the men asleep in the mud-brick home: Mahamadou Souleymane, aka Mdou Moctar, a lanky, twenty-nine-year-old, explosively gifted left-handed Tuareg guitarist who shredded like a Saharan Hendrix. And the purple motorcycle wasn't stolen. They had rented and painted it to be the main prop.  The men were released after Kirkley explained what the film was about.  "It's an homage to Purple Rain," he told the cops. Read the Full Story Delroy Lindo's Balancing Act Among a group of great actors in Spike Lee's new film, Da 5 Bloods, Delroy Lindo is the standout. The movie, which you can watch on Netflix, addresses the experience of Black Vietnam war veterans. And Lindo, 67, plays a complicated character, who is dealing with PTSD, the loss of his wife, and a strained relationship with his son. Esquire's Kate Storey spoke with Lindo about the movie and this moment in American history. "We are at a moment in time here, right now, where there is a mass rejection of that status quo," he says.   Read the Full Story An Excellent—and Easy—Father's Day Gift  The Esquire staff is in love with Yeti's 14-ounce Rambler mug. This is a mug that'll go the distance, even if that distance is the seven feet from the coffee maker to the corner of the kitchen table you've commandeered as a home office. (Ideally, that distance will soon expand to cover ground around a neighborhood tailgate, a beach bonfire, or a campsite three states over.) It's also a thoughtful, easy, and inexpensive ($25) gift for dad.    Read the Full Story Marisa Tomei Never Disappoints   New York is on Marisa Tomei's mind. In April, over Zoom, Esquire's Kevin Sintumuang spoke with the actress about her role in the new Judd Apatow film, The King of Staten Island, which you can stream now, but she was also thinking about the city where she grew up, her parents who live there, and Kevin, the writer, who lives in Brooklyn with his family. "I'm glad you're safe," she tells him. "It must be hard to write now." Tomei spoke with Kevin about her role opposite Pete Davidson in the film, and how she's remained thoroughly superb during her three-decade career. Read the Full Story What Is NASCAR Without Racism?  This week, NASCAR released a statement saying it was barring the confederate flag from all its events and properties. Esquire's Justin Kirland, a lifelong fan of the sport, called the announcement "so seismic, yet simple." He writes: "It suggests that this deeply campy, bombastic, Americana tradition can exist on its own, divorced from the notion that it has to live in the shadow of a racist symbol. And make no mistake, the flag that the league's only black driver, Bubba Wallace, has been forced to drive under is a racist symbol. The move reminds me of the great Toni Morrison's powerful question: "What are you without racism?" Read the Full Story How Essential Is My Facial Feminization Surgery? Nineteen days before her scheduled facial feminization surgery, Harron Walker read reports that New York's governor might cancel elective surgeries on account of the mounting COVID-19 pandemic. The logic made sense to her: Hospitals in the state had a limited amount of personal protective equipment and hospital beds, both of which would become even more limited with each surgery. Not that it would affect her. Because her surgery wasn't elective—it was medically necessary. In Esquire's Summer issue, Walker writes about her experience, and the questions she asked herself as COVID-19 became a deciding factor in how she moved forward.  Read the Full Story   Follow Us     Unsubscribe  Privacy Notice   esquire.com ©2020 Hearst Communications Inc. All Rights Reserved. Hearst Email Privacy, 300 W 57th St., Fl. 19 (sta 1-1), New York, NY 10019