Many languages of music

January, 2012

With a Grammy Award, a stage show that highlights Dobet Gnahoré’s powerful voice, hypnotic dancing and percussion skills, the 29-year-old Ivory Coast artist is rightfully one of the major drawcards to WOMADelaide 2012. She spoke to David Knight.

Named the best act at WOMAD UK 2010 by The Observer newspaper, Dobet Gnahoré’s Adelaide performance will be her first WOMADelaide appearance but she is a global WOMAD veteran.

“I am very happy that WOMAD invited us for the fourth time after the UK, Sicily (Italy) and Caceres (Spain),” Gnahoré begins. “It’s a festival that I like a lot. WOMAD is a big festival where one has the chance to discover other music and other artists; it’s an important festival for the artists, so we are very happy to be coming there.”

Gnahoré – who with American performer India. Arie shared the 2010 Grammy for Best Urban/Alternative Performance with their version of Pearls – was destined to become a performer. Inspired by her master percussionist father, Boni Gnahoré, the younger Gnahoré began her musical education at KiYi Village, an artistic community based in Ivory Coast’s former capital Abidjan.

“In this community we are constantly working in different disciplines (dance, music, theatre) in order to become complete artists.

We are all versatile/multitalented. My father and other artists from KiYi trained me in all the different domains of the arts.

“When I was a child I had great admiration for my father. I wanted to follow in his footsteps; I wanted to be like him. When he was on stage – he and the ‘KiYi-ists’ (artists from the KiYi Village) – it was magic on the stage. My father told me that when one is an artist, you need to have talent but also to work all the time and you need to have something to say. He said to me that you need to take example from the tradition of your ‘Bété’ ethos – which is to speak for the people, or the Malian tradition, which is to announce or to denounce the injustices.”

It was at KiYi, where Gnahoré met her future life and musical partner, Colin Laroche de Féline, a French musician who was backpacking around Africa. Together the pair have written and recorded three albums of pan-African music (including 2010’s Djekpa La You), which encompasses traditional African music with contemporary western touches.

“We compose all our songs together and it brings a colour in the guitar, which is unique and very important in my music.”
In 1999, Gnahoré was sick while pregnant with their first child and the pair relocated to France.

“I arrived in France before the war in the Ivory Coast and the idea was to return to Ivory Coast pretty soon after. But the events in Ivory Coast decided otherwise. I consider France as my second country because my husband is French. I consider myself as Ivorian and I dream of returning to settle in Ivory Coast with my family.”

Civil war in the Ivory Coast has been an ongoing concern since the military coup in 1999. The president from 2000 until the beginning of 2011, Laurent Gbagbo, was arrested in April of this year after the UN insisted he should be arrested for crimes against humanity and Alassane Ouattara – who claimed victory against Gbagbo in the 2010 election – was sworn in as the president of the Ivory Coast in May. Gnahoré hopes Ouattara will bring stability to the West African country.

“I hope that he reunites Ivory Coast and the Ivoirians. Since he has been in power there are some things which have changed. He has already put in place the system that offers children free health care. For me, he is a good voice for the country – for the improvement of the Ivory Coast. I dream of an Ivory Coast like the times of Felix Houphouet-Boigny (president from 1960 until his death in 1993). I dream of returning to live in my country without the fear of instability.”

Gnahoré doesn’t see herself as a global ambassador to the Ivory Coast but she says she owes it to herself to be proud of her father and her country.

“When I am in front of a curious and open-minded audience like that of WOMAD, even more (than usual) I want to speak as an
African woman.”

On her albums, Gnahoré sings as a true pan-African woman, as she sings in seven different African languages.

“I choose the languages in relation to its melody and sometimes because they are the languages that I like in terms of the culture that they drive. I don’t speak seven languages, I write just my texts in French and I have them translated into the African languages with which I have an affinity. In general, I put one month aside to compose a song, because I take time to get to know the language that I’ll use well enough.”

WOMADelaide
Botanic Park
March 9 – 12
womadelaide.com.au