One of the most striking things that first hits you upon meeting Nahawa Doumbia is just how different the Malian singer’s interview voice is from her famously aerial vocals. Speaking in a deep, husky drawl, the music icon from the Wassoulou region, in southern Mali, answered our questions with a certain wry amusement.

Nahawa, who won RFI’s “Découverte” award in 1981, not only put didadi – the rhythm from her native Wassoulou region – on the musical map, but she also proved to be one of the hottest discoveries at the Africolor festival. Amongst Nahawa’s many other claims to fame is the fact that she was the first "African diva" to be remixed by French DJ Frédéric Galliano and she also sang acoustic-style with N’gou Bagayoko, Jean-Philippe Rykiel and Moriba Koita. Since 2004, the Malian star has also been involved in Keyvan Chemirani’s Rythmes de la Parole project with Iranians and Indians singing alongside her in Bambara. That, if one can put such an impressively eclectic career in a nutshell, is Nahawa’s story to date. But that would be forgetting Nahawa’s reputation in Mali, and indeed throughout the rest of West Africa, as outspoken taboo-breaker, woman of conviction and general consciousness-raiser.

Dishing out advice Doumbia-style

In her songs, Nahawa is renowned for dishing out straight-talking ‘advice’ in Bambara, drawing on her own harsh experiences in life or making wry observations about what she sees happening in society around her. Popularly listened to and, at the same time, roundly criticised (as is so often the case in Africa), Nahawa cuts an atypical figure amongst female singers in Mali. Aminata Traoré, former Minister of Culture in Mali, a committed social activist and close friend of Nahawa’s, recounts how "the sheer force of what she says in Bambara and the way she stirs people up once she’s understood what’s at stake means we’ve often asked Nahawa to get involved with consciousness-raising tours where she’s spoken out on issues such as the structural causes of African migration. We’ve also marched together on protests against GM crops during the Social Forum in Bamako. Nahawa was also there when our local neighbourhood mayor tried to throw a spanner in the works and steal land from us."

Nahawa Doumbia is a woman, it seems, with enough energy and commitment to fight on all fronts. But she insists that "I’m not a ‘griot’ and I don’t do politics. Having said that, however, if I see something going on that’s not right, I’m ready to stand up and fight for the truth. I play everywhere and I go round doling out advice everywhere, even right under the nose of the Malian authorities. They’re afraid of me." And who wouldn’t be? Nahawa is not a woman who minces her words and she’s not frightened of issuing warnings to government leaders or breaking established taboos. Nahawa has frequently ruffled feathers, singing songs traditionally reserved for men or Dozo hunters from the south of the country. "We’re supposed to be living in a democracy, aren’t we?" she laughs.

In the early 90s, as Mali suffered severe rioting provoked by the military regime, Nahawa recorded a series of songs about the troubles that echoed across the land and beyond. In France, while dozens of illegal immigrants barricaded themselves in the Eglise Saint-Bernard in Paris as a protest against their living conditions, Nahawa went into the studio to record Yankaw ("People From Here"), a song that urged the Malian diaspora to respect the laws of their adoptive homelands – and urged Europeans to treat their brothers with dignity and respect. In October of last year, following events in Ceuta and Melilla, Nahawa made a stand with her friend Aminata Traoré, launching La Caravane de la dignité contre les barbelés de l’injustice. This campaign involved the pair publicly going out onto the runway at Bamako airport to welcome home Malians who had been ‘forcibly returned’ to their homeland.

Vision and ambition

Meanwhile, alongside her campaigning work, Nahawa has found time to reflect on an ambitious new project. "I’m currently hard at work on my next album," she says, "I’m still working with N’Gou Bagayoko, but this album’s going to be very different from everything I’ve done up to now. Before now, I’ve just done acoustic, guitar/vocals stuff, but this is going to be different. I believe you have to continually search for new musical colours. There are no frontiers in music. I compose things my own way. I don’t ever write anything down, but I do sit and think about how my songs are going to take shape… I sort out the lyrics and compose my music myself." This new album marks a turning-point for the singer who has often worked with leading music stars in the course of her career. "This time round, I’ll be in charge of making my album. I’m planning to produce it myself then look for a new record company in Europe, because my contract with Cobalt (the Africolor label) has run out."

Nahawa’s mantra in life is "finality", an essential component of her world vision. "Starting something is easy," she quips, "It’s following through that’s tough. You have to think about the next step, how you can move things on from there. That’s what I talk about on a song like Labankou. ‘Laban’, you see, means ‘closure’." Nahawa, Malian diva and visionary? "No, I wouldn’t say that," she laughs, her eyes shining with promise, "but I can see an awfully long way ahead!"