Yelema

Born in Bamako, Mali, and raised by her maternal grandmother in the purest Bambara tradition, Mamani Keita was barely in her twenties when she arrived in France at the turn of the 1990s. She already had a fine reputation for her active part in the Malian arts scene, from the theater troupe "Oulofobougou" to Mali's national orchestra, "Badema".

Quickly welcomed by the African community in Paris, she soon stood out as a backing singer in Salif Keita's band and by taking part in a number of innovative, unusual projects bridging African music and jazz (Jeffrey Smith, Hank Jones and Cheikh Tidiane Seck). Invited to join the group Tama, led by English guitarist Sam Mills and Malian musician Tom Diakité, she recorded the album Espace in London, released on Peter Gabriel's Real World label. In 2005 she recorded four new songs for the soundtrack of the film Kirikou et les bêtes sauvages, produced by Manu Dibango.

But it was undeniably the experimental "world electro" album Electro Bamako, made with French musician Marc Minelli, that brought her international recognition from audiences and critics alike in 2002. It is clear today that by placing her inimitable voice in hybrid settings mixing jazz rhythms and electronic sounds, Mamani Keita, without ever watering down her tradition, was opening new perspectives for contemporary African music.

This new record, Yelema ("change" in Bambara), takes the fusion adventure further still, but from a completely different angle. Clearly following on from Electro Bamako, it sets itself apart by no longer trying to project Africa into modernity, but by revealing what this mixed, cosmopolitan modernity owes to Africa.

This fresh, iconoclastic and yet deeply respectful view of African music is mainly due to Nicolas Repac, who conceived and produced Yelema. Composer, multi-instrumentalist (and an excellent guitarist), refined arranger and Arthur H's partner for many years (they have made no fewer than four albums together), this tireless explorer of sound, a master of machines of every kind, made his name in 2004 with a record on Nø Førmat! as joyful as it is hard to pin down: Swing Swing, an astonishing poetic and sensual wander that updates the essential virtues of swing for the electronic age.

A creator of tailor-made atmospheres (for Michel Portal, among others) and an unclassifiable singer-songwriter tending his own secret garden, lyrical, tenderly melancholic and readily surreal, Nicolas Repac was the ideal partner Mamani Keita had been waiting for to let the most intimate side of her world finally flow. Born of this telepathic collaboration, Yelema dares every stylistic collision and every cultural hybrid, while never ceasing to take its humble place in the age-old epic of the most authentic African music.