The Desert Has No Borders

There exists a conversation that moves across continents and centuries, carried on the breath of horns and the pulse of ancient rhythms. It is the voice of North Africa, a music that refuses borders, that speaks of revolution and healing, of forgotten melodies becoming brass arrangements that shimmer in the desert air.

At The Arts Center at NYU Abu Dhabi, this conversation takes shape through the Franco-Algerian brass ensemble Fanfaraï, whose founders Samir Inal and Mehdi Chaib trace the genealogy of sound itself. Inal, who leads the ensemble as founder and percussionist, and Chaib, whose saxophone and percussion work weave together multiple traditions, sit down to map the migration of music through North Africa and beyond.

What emerges is a narrative of transformation. The Zorna double-reed, that ancient instrument of the street and the celebration, shifts into something new without losing its soul. Traditional Algerian Raï compositions, born in Oran and carried within them the weight of anti-colonial resistance and revolutionary spirit, resurface with fresh urgency. And beneath it all flow the sub-Saharan Gnawa and Diwan healing trance rhythms, those transcendent sounds that move across the desert like wind, reshaping everything they touch.

This is music that carries history in its bones. The sub-Saharan traditions drift northward, merging with North African idioms, creating something that belongs to many places at once. There is no single origin, no single destination. The music simply is, breathing across geographies, speaking to the shared humanity that lies beneath all cultural expression.

Through this partnership, The Arts Center at NYU Abu Dhabi continues its mission to centre global conversations within the emirate, to create spaces where the world’s artistic traditions meet and converse. It is a reminder that art transcends all constructed boundaries, that music in particular carries within it the stories of peoples, of resistance, of joy, of the sacred.