Etran Finatawa’s musicians come from Niger which is one of the three poorest countries in the world, it is a landlocked country in West Africabordered by Mali, Algeria, Libya, Chad and Nigeria. Niger has a very rich cultural heritage and sits at a desert crossroads between the Berber and Arab cultures of the North and the many sub-Saharan cultures of the South. In Niger there are eleven different ethnic groups most of whom are farmers or pastoralists, both sedentary and nomadic. Amongst them are the Tuareg and Wodaabe, many of whom are still nomadic. They move with their camels, long-horned cattle, sheep, goats and donkeys seeking pastures along the Sahelian savannah at the fringes of the South Sahara.
