Rokia Traore has always been a maverick among Mali’s great singer songwriters. Having grown up in various locations in Europe and North Africa, as well as in her homeland, she has always brought a worldly perspective to her music. She has used traditions without being in any way bound by them. But as inventive as her three previous albums have been, nothing to date quite prepares one for this, by far her most inventive and original set of songs.
Start with her discovery of vintage guitars and amplifiers, particularly her new favorite axe, a 1967 Gretsch Country Gentleman, on which she plays a minimalist, brooding ostinato on the opener “Dounia.” Not until midway through the song, with its almost whispered vocal, does the rest of the ensemble join in—ngoni, bass, two more guitars, and percussion. The song reaches a wrenching crescendo, Rokia’s whisper building to a bluesy growl as she sings of Malian heroes, and “The story of an Africa we miss.” Other songs also build around Rokia’s spare guitar lines, but they rarely go where you expect them to go. The shuffling “Aimer (Loving)” is a symphony of plinks and plunks, some electronic, some plucked, muted strings.
Her poetry too has evolved. On the song “Zen”—with its kalimba-like accompaniment and tasteful, brush drumming—Rokia sings words unlike anything else in West African music:
I eat life and the wind
I dance in the rain showers
And in the mornings, tired
I fill my palms with dew
And let the sky settle
on my eyelashes
Zen
Oh, how I am
Zen
Echoes of African music are not absent here, just abstracted. Only two of these ten tracks—“Koronoko” and “Tounka”—unfold into strongly rhythmic grooves, and coming in the middle of the set, they give the album a backbone, a sense of shape and movement. “Kounandi (Charisma)” has the tonality and feel of a pensive Mande classic, melancholy and warm. But Rokia’s vocal is soft and elegant with the free feel of a jazz ballad. She is finding new colors in her voice, and nowhere is this more apparent than on her cover of Gershwin’s “The Man I Love.” Rokia provides vibrato guitar chords and the ngoni and bass riff with tasteful bluesiness. Rokia starts her vocal by channeling Billy Holiday with impressive nuance, but when the swing kicks in, she moves on to flutters, coos, and that satisfying growl. Rokia has taken her time with this album, and her patience and experience show. Her strongest work to date, and a landmark in the ongoing expansion of modern music from Mali.
Rokia Traore has always been a maverick among Mali’s great singer songwriters. Having grown up in various locations in Europe and North Africa, as well as in her homeland, she has always brought a worldly perspective to her music. She has used traditions without being in any way bound by them. But as inventive as her three previous albums have been, nothing to date quite prepares one for this, by far her most inventive and original set of songs. 