Nahawa Doumbia (born ca. 1961
[) is a singer from Mali's ]Wassoulou
Wassoulou is a cultural area and historical region in the Wassoulou River Valley of West Africa. It is home to about 160,000 people, and is also the native land of the Wassoulou genre of music.
Wassoulou surrounds the point where the border ...
region.
Biography and career
Doumbia, in a career that lasted for over four decades, was an important musician in the development and definition of Wassoulou music
Wassoulou ( bm, Wasolo) is a genre of West African popular music named for the Wassoulou cultural area.
Wassoulou music is performed mostly by women. Some recurring themes in the lyrics are childbearing, fertility, and polygamy. Instrumentation ...
, the popular music from her area of Southern Mali,[ which in turn had a great influence on Mali's musical culture. Doumbia was born into a caste of blacksmiths and so wouldn't have been allowed to sing, but broke that taboo. Her career got started after she won a contest on the French-language radio station ]Radio France Internationale
Radio France Internationale, usually referred to as RFI, is the state-owned international radio broadcaster of France. With 37.2 million listeners in 2014, it is one of the most-listened-to international radio stations in the world, along with ...
. Scholar Lucy O'Brien
Lucy O'Brien (born 13 September 1961)Author Biography, O'Brien, Lucy – She Bop: The definitive history of women in rock, pop, and soul, London: Penguin, 1995 is a British author and journalist whose work focuses on women in music.
Early musi ...
mentioned her as one of the women who created a music that gave voice to female expression, and praised her "high-tech poetry and metaphor" in a study of women in popular music.
Her debut album, ''La Grande Cantatrice Malienne Vol 1'', was recorded with N’Gou Bagayoko, who played acoustic guitar and who later became her husband. After her first recording, as a duo, she moved toward playing with larger groups that incorporated synthesizers and electric guitar. ''La Grande Cantatrice'' was released on AS Records, a record label from Côte d’Ivoire. It was rereleased in 2019 by Awesome Tapes From Africa
Awesome Tapes From Africa is a record label and website operated by Brian Shimkovitz, based in Los Angeles, California. The site was founded in 2006 in Brooklyn, New York.
History
The site was created as a way for Shimkovitz to share music he had ...
.Bamako
Bamako ( bm, ߓߡߊ߬ߞߐ߬ ''Bàmakɔ̌'', ff, 𞤄𞤢𞤥𞤢𞤳𞤮 ''Bamako'') is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Mali, with a 2009 population of 1,810,366 and an estimated 2022 population of 2.81 million. It is located on t ...
, in Salif Keita
Salif Keïta () (born 25 August 1949) is a Malian singer-songwriter, referred to as the "Golden Voice of Africa". He is a member of the Keita royal family of Mali.
Biography Early life
Salif Keita was born a traditional prince in the village o ...
's studio. Instrumentation included the traditional ngoni and a modern version thereof, and the kamale ngoni, besides guitar. According to reviewer Eugene Ulman, "The arrangements, building from mostly acoustic to bass-heavy grooves, are sparse and deliberate: every detail, down to the smallest karignan (metal scraper) and the gunshot samples (incorporated into the percussion palette) are placed with meticulous care."[
She wrote a song in honor of ]Thomas Sankara
Thomas Isidore Noël Sankara (; 21 December 1949 – 15 October 1987) was a Burkinabé military officer, Marxist–Leninist revolutionary, and Pan-Africanist, who served as President of Burkina Faso from his coup in 1983 to his deposition a ...
, the revolutionary who became the President of Burkina Faso.
References
{{reflist
Living people
20th-century Malian women singers
Year of birth missing (living people)
21st-century Malian women singers