He sure looks the part! He probably played at one point with Tinariwen, they've been going for ages and are sort of a musical collective where people hop on and off.
To unacquainted Western ears this "desert ethno blues" sounds like a monotonous drone at first, but if you listen to it long enough it wins this hypnotic trance-like quality and you begin to hear all these poly-rhythmic movements - just don't wait for a chord change to happen anytime quick!
The mobile phone density in Northern and Western Africa is higher than in most places in Europe. Given the infrastructure challenges people face there, a cell phone (or more than one ...) becomes key. It's cheaper & quicker to get a mobile network up and running there in even the remotest regions than to build a road.