Songhoy Blues

Malian band Songhoy Blues comes to Grounds with a new chapter in its distinctive desert blues sound, combining rock energy with traditions from across Mali.

The band emerged in 2013 with a raw style sometimes described as ‘Timbuktu Punk’, built around gritty vocals, bright guitar lines, rock rhythms and the musical traditions of northern Mali. Based in Bamako after being displaced from the north of the country, Songhoy Blues has since taken its music to major stages around the world.

Latest album Héritage takes a more acoustic and reflective direction. New compositions sit alongside reworkings of older material, with kora, soku, kamalengoni, flute, Senufo xylophone and calabash percussion expanding the band’s familiar desert blues palette. The album also explores migration, displacement and the meaning of cultural heritage.

The result still carries Songhoy Blues’ rock-driven energy, but with more space for the musical traditions and instruments that shaped the group’s roots in Mali.

Details

Event: Songhoy Blues
Date: Friday 9 October 2026
Doors open: 20:00
Start: 21:00
Location: Grounds, Rotterdam
Address: Pieter de Hoochweg 125, 3024 BG Rotterdam
Early bird: €20
Advance: €22.50 + €1 service fee
Door: €25
Rotterdampas: €12.50
Genre: Desert blues, blues rock and Malian music
Latest album: Héritage