Check out Mdou Moctar, an outstanding self-taught guitarist who plays music that transcends borders and labels

Here's an artist you should know if you don't already: Mdou Moctar. He is an outstanding self-taught guitarist who plays music that transcends borders and labels. His website describes his eclectic musical style:

Tuareg guitarist and songwriter Mdou Moctar boldly reforges contemporary Saharan music and "rock music" by melding Eddie Van Halen pyrotechnics, full-blast noise and guitar shredding, field recordings, drums rhythms, poetic meditations on love, religion, women's rights, inequality and Western Africa's exploitation at the hands of colonial powers to rip a new hole in the sky with the Afrique Victime album.