Rokia Traoré

Mali's Rokia Traore challenged tradition in order to fulfil her fantasy of a career in music.

Around 4,000 folk and world music fans are heading to one of the UK's original and longest-running boutique festivals to catch artists from Jools Holland to Rokia Traore and Imelda May.

African singer guitarist and protegee of 'desert blues' master Ali Farka Toure, has cultural role as Tchamantche released Clive Davis Watch Rokia Taore perform As if the business of keeping a band on the road were not enough of a challenge, Rokia Traor is now playing the role of cultural administrator, too.

A fourth floor apartment overlooking the Rue du Louvre. Outside, the rain is coming down in sheets.

After a decade of championing traditional West African instruments, Rokia Traore found a potent muse in the sound of an old electric guitar.

The daughter of a diplomat, Rokia Traore has built her musical career around a stylish, natural assimilation of African and European cultures. Reviewer Banning Eyre says that the opening track from Traore's new album, Tchamantche, tells the whole story.

W hen singer/song-writer Rokia Traor last performed at the Cedar Cultural Center in 2004, she churned the packed house into a sweaty frenzy on an extended encore fueled by balafon, the xylophone-like instrument ...

The New York-based band Beirut travels to Mexico for its latest album: a brassy, adventurous double EP called March of Zapotec. It won't be released until the end of February, but you can hear a sneak preview here with the song, "The Shrew." Also on this edition of All Songs Considered: an ambitious debut release from the seven-piece, Nashville-based ensemble Darla Farmer; a collaboration between David Byrne and the Dirty Projectors, as part of a new album to promote AIDS awareness; a moody, gorgeous new album from Mali's Rokia Traore; new music from the seemingly tortured Antony and the Johnsons; a solo release from AC Newman of the New Pornographers; and Norwegian punk-pop singer Ida Maria.

AP - Rokia Traore, "Tchamantche" (Nonesuch Records)

Rokia Traor has discovered electric guitars, with dramatic results. When she first started out, her gently demure acoustic playing was matched against the n'goni and balafon, and her aim was to create "modern, ...