Track Listing

1. Laidu
2. Moune�ssa
3. Finini
4. Dianguina
5. Sabali
6. Tchiwara
7. Fatalit�
8. Sakanto
9. S�

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #59772 in Music
• Released on: 2008-08-01
• Number of discs: 1

From Amazon.com
If Rokia Traore singing the title track to Mouneïssa isn't one of the great pleasures of owning a pair of headphones, it certainly comes close. Her pure, angelic voice grabs the Manding material by its soulful lapels while maintaining a thoughtful note of understatement that's a nice antidote to the declamatory attack of many other Malian vocalists. She's arresting but never overpowering as gliding harmonies couple with the chiming plucked-string arrangement. This reissue of Traore's first album from 1997 shows fewer of the Western vocal touches than on 2000's Wanita, along with soft backing instrumentation that complements her voice like soft raindrops on tender seeds. Acoustic energy propels compositions that draw freely from the Malian griot tradition while adding bold but unobtrusive neo-folkie touches. "Sakanto" pairs the ngoni lute with the balafon wooden marimba, using her healing voice to knit the woody textures together. The fifth cut ("Sabali") surprises by ushering in the first palpable drum on the disc plus an electric bass that creates the tension for her bluesy song about getting wisdom. Though this warm and powerful CD displays Traore at full confidence, it only hints at the gifts she has still to give. --Bob Tarte

Chronique amazon.fr
Entre l'enracinement dans son terreau ancestral et l'épanouissement sur toutes les terres mondiales, la Malienne Rokia Traoré développe une thématique originale, toute en douce sensualité acoustique, pleine d'énergie rythmique aussi. Sans forcer les traits typiques, les instruments traditionnels du Sud sahélien bercent son chant intemporel, nourri du nomadisme d'une vie en transhumance. Pour un premier album qui lève un voile pudique sur une voix qui se joue avec autant de talent des accents aigus que des pointes plus graves. --Jacques Denis

Customer Reviews

beautiful
A wonderful album. I keep playing it again and again. It is music that goes straight to the heart. I am glad and thankful that it was not colored in western pop. The previous positive reviews were so much to the point, I find it difficult to add anything meaningful. If Africa attracts you, so will this album.

HER STUNNING FIRST ALBUM
Since I wrote such an extended review of Rokia Traore's newest cd, WANITA, I'll keep this one brief. This album, her debut, is every bit as enjoyable as her second. The arrangements are very similar -- acoustic, traditional instruments for the most part, with the addition of acoustic guitar and bass -- and the vocals are absolutely wonderful. Traore sings with such emotion in a completely unaffected, natural style -- she is expressing through her compositions what she feels about life in her homeland of Mali. She's not trying to be a posing superstar -- although she deserves much wider recognition, and I can't imagine her not becoming heard by a much larger world audience.

The music on this disc is intrinsically African, with no concessions to Western or European pop culture -- and it, like her second recording, succeeds completely. Heartfelt and unadorned -- and unencumbered -- music like this can be enjoyed and appreciated by anyone whose soul can be touched by art and creativity. No pretentions here -- this is the real thing.

The music that put her on the Malian map
Although it's being released in the U.S. more than a year after 2000's "Wanita," this album was Ms. Traoré's first recording, appearing in her home country of Mali in late 1997. Propelled by its popular title song, "Mouneissa" was an almost overnight success there.

What Ms. Traoré accomplishes with this album is a virtual reinvention of Malian popular music. She shunned modern instrumentation (except her own acoustic guitar, and an occasional bass guitar) in favor of old-fashioned xylophones, traditional harps and lutes. At the same time she added some outside influences--notably vocal harmonies in her songs' choruses--that remain absent from her Malian contemporaries' music. The result is austere, melodic, and beautiful. This singer is Mali's Traci Chapman, its Ani DiFranco, only way cuter than either of those two.

Ms. Traoré's voice has little in common with those of other African women singers. Where griots like Ami Koita charge through a phrase with power and bombast, Rokia caresses the notes delicately. What she lacks in vocal strength she makes up for in finesse. Her voice is at turns high and plaintive, then low and sultry, often in the course of a single song.

"Mouneissa" features arrangements that are even more spare and simple than those heard on "Wanita." The songs are generally quite accessible even to Western listeners. In my opinion it's a better album than "Wanita," and I hope it garners at least as much attention in America and Europe as it did in West Africa.