Rokia Traore is a wonderful and inspirational Malian singer, songwriter, and guitarist. We love the rich culture that is infused with political statements in Rokias music, which would probably be a direct effect of her constant travel as a youth with her diplomatic father. She is of the Bamana/Mende people of West Africa. “While the Bamana have a tradition of griot performing at weddings, members of the nobility such as Traoré are discouraged from performing as musicians. Traoré attended lycée in Mali while her father was stationed in Brussel's and started performing publicly as a university student in Bamako. Unusually for a female musician in Africa, Traoré plays acoustic guitar as well as sings, and she uses vocal harmonies in her arrangements which are rare in Malian music.”

Probably the most important subject Rokia discusses on this album is Childhood. It’s something that she feels very strongly about and is the main theme of the title track ‘Bowmboï ‘and ‘Manian’. “I wanted to talk about this period as the basis of every human beings life.” She continues “There are no universal rights for people, no level platform from which we all start and so our whole lives are linked in one way or another to our childhood environments.”

3 Things We Love About Rokia Traore:

Her Style: We love the fact that Rokia maintains such a simple and natural style and beauty. Her short cut and colorful and simple attire is simply refreshing.

Her Sound: Rokias sound is sweet and clear. Her fusion of traditional and non-traditional West African music is lovely and she manages to blend several styles of music while still maintaining her cultural foundation.

Her Passion: Rokia makes many political and important statements of cultural and societal topics within her music, especially womanhood and we applaud her for that.

Several songs on Bowmboï and most of her previous album Wanita deal with the position of women in modern African society. “We have a lot of freedoms our mothers didn't have,” Rokia admits. “But women have to be brave to fight for their rights. You need courage. So a lot of my songs pay tribute to strong women.” To many, this has made Rokia a role model. Yet not everybody is ready to accept her forthright attitude. “I'm saying stand up and you can be free,” she says. “But some people don’t like that. They want their stars to have bleached skin and wear lots of make-up and drive around in big cars. And they’re not going to get that from me.” Check out all of her albums by clicking here & keep a lookout for Rokias new album set to release spring of 2008.