Desert discs: how mobile phones are at the root of Saharan music

Sim city: Kirkley collected MP3 memory cards in Kidal, Mali. Photograph: Alfred Wolf/Getty
However eclectic your music collection, it would still need to go some way to match the sheer range of tracks shared by villagers swapping songs via Bluetooth and Sim card in the Sahara. Bollywood classics, Algerian Rai, Kuduro, French ballads – this is just a sample grab of the