Ahmed Ag Kaedy (guitar, vocals)
Dirk Engelhardt (tenor saxophone)
Michael Wehmeyer (piano, organ, embryo)
Isabel Rößler (bass)
Laura Robles (cajon, percussion)
Esteban "Hombre Nuevo" Ruiz (drums)

Ahmed Ag Kaedy, singer, composer, and guitarist of the band Amanar de Kidal, which he founded in 2005, is a figurehead for a generation of musicians who feel a responsibility to convey to their local audiences, through their conscious lyrics, the need for education and development while respecting tradition. During the fighting between his community and the Malian government, which continues to this day, he enlisted in the Libyan army under Gaddafi's regime, but soon discovered that the guitar was a more constructive weapon against the madness and intolerance that prevailed in the region.

Like most of his brethren in the region, he rejects being classified as a "Tuareg"—a name given to various nomadic communities in the Sahel by their Arabic-speaking neighbors, as the word derives from "Tawariq," which actually means "godforsaken." He calls himself a Kel Tamasheq—someone who speaks the Tamasheq language. The city that gave the band its name is the capital of the Kidal region and lies in the heart of a mountain range called the Adrar des Ifoghas, which extends into Algeria. Its small size (barely 10,000 square kilometers) and population (25,000 inhabitants in 2009) belie its strategic importance in the unrest that has torn northern Mali apart in recent decades. The events that have unfolded since 2010 between the factions fighting for power in Kidal are too complicated to recount here. When the extremists took over his hometown, the suppression of music was one of the most important points on their agenda. After being threatened with having his fingers cut off if he ever dared to play the guitar again, Ahmed Ag Kaedy decided to move to Bamako, where he still lives.