The Ensemble Tartit are Malian Tamashek (Tuareg), comprising five women and four men. Tartit means 'union' in their language. They met in a refugee camp in Burkina Faso, where their music was a means of survival against the social and political mayhem in the Sahara Desert. Political strife for freedom and equality led, thus, to the formation of tartit in 1995. Within months after their foundation in 1995, Tartit performed their debut concert at the MASA Trade Fair for African Arts in Abidjan, Ivory Coast.