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Rokia Traoré is only twenty-seven years old and is already recognized as one of the greatest voices in all of Africa today. She comes to us from Mali, from Bamako, without the slightest doubt in her mind, as her talent is backed up by strength and serenity. Full of freshness and nerve, and with natural authority and great integrity in her artistic choices, she has already charmed many of the most influential musicians on the African continent. A handsome calling card for this young singer at a time when she is about to step up onto international stages.
Already a winner of the "RFI Discoveries - Africa 1997" and a revelation at the "Musiques Métisses of Angoulême", Rokia Traoré creates a deliciously original and appealing music that is resolutely based on tradition and opens up onto a tempered modernity that never makes any sacrifices to the "merging" trends of Western World Music. If Rokia Traoré innovates and imposes an already singular voice in contemporary African music, it is as a responsible artist aware of the forms she wishes to be part of. A music that dares new and exciting instrumental melting pot by inventing orchestral colors that depict with sweet nostalgia the mischievous compositions of the singer.
www.rokiatraore.net
Photograph: Benoît Peverelli
Both delicate and intense, filled with nostalgia or strong hope, Rokia Traoré's voice journeys through the world of an artist who created her own style in a country among the musically richest in all Africa.
During her childhood, she fed on the seemingly trance-like rhythms of Upper Niger, the sharp beat of the chants of the stars of the National Ensemble, the syncopated style of Lamisse Bengali - the renowned balafola (1) from Kénédougou - the bittersweet voices of the singers from Wassoulou... to learn their vocal and instrumental techniques.
In 1998, she realized “Mouneïssa”. This first album gave rise to astonishment and revealed to music-lovers a vocalist of magical talent, open to both ancestral traditions and the diverse influences of the life of a wanderer. We find her peaceful atmospheres, touched with an almost surreal concern, so typical of Sahel songs.
This newly acquired recognition prompted her to evolve vocally and perfect her arrangements.”Tonalities that are foreign to my language call out to me, suggesting surprising melodies, the singer explains. Sometimes I pretend I'm a rocker singing in Bamanan! What's important to me is to choose the right modulation with respect to the intensity of the note while preserving its delicacy, which gives all the color to my singing. “
If the historical singers, such as Hawa Dramé, "Young" Fanta Demba or the "première" Amï Koïta remain her references, Rokia innovated many new ways of singing that brought to her style a personal stamp. To the flights of the djelimoussos (2) with their striking high notes, dizzying descents and Arabic intonations, she prefers a more intimate phrasing, finely bordered with barely hushed murmurs, lit up by the effects that confer light and depth to her voice.
Herein lies the challenge of Rokia Traoré: make an authentic, innovate music, without giving in to trends. She surrounds herself with a team trained in time-honored school of tradition. Her musicians essentially use local instruments (balaba, n’goni, karignan, gaïta, djembé... ), but her voice remains free to depart from established aesthetic canons.
In this second album, she returns to the acoustic orchestration of "Mouneïssa" (joined by an electric bass on four pieces) and pursues the experience of the preceding recording, uniting the groaning timbre of the great balafonist Balaba - so well known for hosting moonlit dances - with the more subtle, though deeper, riffs of then’goni bâ, the tetrachord guitar that punctuates epic tales. Listening to it, we discover a highly varied rhythmic and melodic canvas.
Sometimes melancholic, sometimes shimmering, Rokia Traoré's voice reflects the unfathomable destiny of the human being, singing a poignant ode to the dignity of women ("Muso Niyalén"), trembling, whispering or pulsating like a little drum, reminding us of the foundations of the philosophy of the ancients ("Wanita").
The sounds that circulate in her mind are transformed through her vocal chords into melodic cells that express emotion, bearing aloft an image lost in space or time. Here is the secret of any singer: creating his or her own language - a musical idiom sprung from a sometimes mysterious source and that touches our very hearts.
Thus, "Château de sable", the only track in French (the others being performed in Bamanan, Rokia's mother tongue) does not clash with the musical color of the whole. The artist was very adamant about this point and consequently developed her work on sonorities so that they transcend the meaning of words to acquire a sort of independence with respect to the employed language. "I sang my language in their language," Rokia was to say, who drew her dense musical writing from the warmth of a tale steeped in poetry.
"Yaafa n'ma" - a call for humility in the guise of a ballad - evokes the power of life and death through syllabic phases that recall the art of the bel canto.
"Yèrè uolo", sung in a typically Bamanan style, is irreproachfully arranged with a perfect dosing of voice and instrumentation and its lively airs force Rokia to keep pace.
Inspired by an Indian raga, "Suba" is a hymn to sharing, requiring a light
voice over a minimal accompaniment.
Rokia Traoré has given to the music of Mali and the world at large tender beauty and flawless singing.
Luigi Elongui
(1) Instrumentalist balafon player, the African xylophone made of wooden
strips and gourds as a sound box.
(2) Genealogists and singers, keepers of history and oral tradition in
the Mandingo societies of West Africa.
Contacts
Agent
Country: France
Name: Corinne Serres/Mad Minute Music
Tel: 01 40 10 25 55
Fax: 01 40 10 17 37
E-mail: corinne@madminutemusic.com
Website: madminutemusic.com
Adress: 5-7, rue Paul bert
93400 Saint Ouen
Tourneur
Name: Corinne Serres / Mad Minute Music
Tel: 01 40 10 25 55
Fax: 01 40 10 17 37
E-mail: corinne@madminutemusic.com
Website: www.madminutemusic.com
Adress: 5-7 rue Paul Bert
93400 Saint Ouen
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