Beautiful Africa

Description

Rokia Traoré’s new album Beautiful Africa is the fifth discographic milestone in a unique career, shaped under the dual sign of rigor and pleasure. The album was produced by John Parish (PJ Harvey, Eels). With all the spontaneity that underpins her inspiration, Rokia Traoré reaffirms her determination to escape the constraints of clichés and genres. Malian by birth and culture, the musician, daughter of a diplomat, has traveled the world and known exile since childhood. Already on Mouneïssa (1998), Wanita (2000) and Bowmboï (2003), Rokia Traoré was renewing the traditions of her country from within, bringing together instruments that custom tended to keep apart, such as the balafon, the n'goni and the acoustic guitar; or by collaborating with the Americans of the Kronos Quartet. With Tchamantché (2008), for which she won a Victoire de la Musique, she negotiated a first turning point, integrating into her sonic palette the electric guitar, which became her new instrument of choice, the bass and the drums; revealing the blood and sound ties that connected her to Billie Holiday as well as Ali Farka Touré, to French chanson as well as to the family of rock or Anglo-Saxon singer-songwriters. On Beautiful Africa, she brought together a Malian musical core and a contingent of European instrumentalists and even an Australian beatboxer. The result of their association is astonishingly musical. Aiming as always for the essential, touching the very nerve and fiber of the songs, John Parish’s sonic touch excels at bringing to light the driving forces of Rokia Traoré’s language through this blend of inner calm and unfailing determination that characterizes conquering spirits.