Oumou Sangaré celebrates regional and national pride in Timbuktu

One of the obstacles Oumou Sangaré has faced in her singing career — beyond misogyny and jealous rivals — is that she has often been kept busy by business. The Malian diva runs a conglomerate of companies in sectors from agriculture to hospitality to retail, as well as heading a humanitarian foundation. It took the pandemic for space to clear in her diary. Stranded in the United States, she bought a house in Baltimore and settled down to write songs with her kamele ngoni player, Mamadou Sidibé.

For many years after her first cassette tape, Moussolou, became a best-seller across West Africa, Sangaré’s western record label was World Circuit. For 2017’s Mogoya (and its spin-off remixes) she moved to the Parisian label No Format, apparently driven by a desire for a more electronic, beat-driven sound. Peace has clearly been made, because here she is back on World Circuit, but again with French producers, this time Nicolas Quéré and Pascal Danaë. The former brings keyboards and reeds; the latter guitar, slide guitar and dobro. The musical backing was recorded largely in Paris, Baltimore and Bamako. And yet this is a much more Malian-sounding record than Mogoya, the backing in service of the songs and Sangaré’s commanding mid-range voice.

The album opens with a gritty circling guitar riff and Sangaré singing the praises of her home region of Wassoulou. “They looked down on us as miserable ngoni players, singers, dancers interested only in partying and having a good time . . . ” she hollers, before noting the region’s investments in “schools, health centres and hotels” — a more thrilling song than a press release has any right to be.

There is national pride as well as regional. The title track, to a camel lope and slide-guitar sighs, asserts the centrality of the northern city (sacked by Islamist rebels a decade ago but now recovering). “Timbuktu, crossroad of knowledge, where stood the greatest university in the world, the ancient mosque of Djingareyber . . . Timbuktu, city of the 333 saints, legendary city known all over the world!” The sung lines lengthen improbably; backing singers urge the message home.

Elsewhere, the same themes circle around and appear in different guises. Sangaré bewails gossip and personal attacks (“Sarama”, “Dily Oumou”), upholds the role of women and mothers (“Gniani Sara”, “Kanou”) and laments the impact of war on children (“Demissimw”, “Kêlê Magni”). The album ends where it began, with a celebration of the hidden knowledge of Wassoulou. Reworking the traditional “Sabou Dogoné” amid stark mirages of synthesiser, Sangaré’s voice is small, almost cracked.

★★★★☆

‘Timbuktu’ is released by World Circuit