A chill wind blows through the streets of northern Paris on a grey November afternoon, but Cheikh N'djamena - better known to music fans as Bakhan - is oblivious to the cold. The Mauritanian singer is locked away inside, practising his set for the finals of RFI's "Découvertes" Award (to be held in the Togolese capital, Lomé, on 25 November 2009.) Bakhan appears amazingly calm and collected, but at the same time he is also fully aware that he will have just a short space of time to win members of the "Découvertes" jury over. "I think all three finalists deserve to win the award this year," he says, "We're all fighters. I guess all that remains to do now is play our sets and give the performance of our lives!"

Wearing his guitar strapped on his back like some sort of protective shell, Bakhan is the first to admit that music has helped him through some very hard times. And Bakhan and his family have lived through their fair share of these. Inter-ethnic fighting broke out in Mauritania in 1989 and a significant number of "Negro-Mauritanians" (as those of black origin are locally known) were forced into exile. Mauritania had traditionally been ruled by Moors of Arabic origin and when Arab nationalism reached a head (1989-1991) government police began knocking on Negro-Mauritanians' doors making a series of arbitrary arrests. The authorities, under Colonel Taya's iron rule, accused the country's black population of fermenting a "racial" coup and used this as an excuse to force thousands of people from their homes.

Bakhan's family received their own visit from the state police. "The memory's still vivid in my mind," Bakhan says, a shadow falling across his face as he talks, "I was the one who opened the door when the police arrived. They announced that we had to get out of Mauritania right away. We had to leave everything we owned behind." Bakhan and his family joined the mass exodus and ended up in the Dagana refugee camp across the Senegal River. At night, he recounts, the Mauritanian refugees would attempt to forget their sorrows, staging impromptu shows which involved singing, dancing and even acting at times. "My first audience was in that refugee camp," Bakhan remembers, pinpointing the starting-point of a trajectory that turned him into a local idol, audiences clamouring for encores as they fell under the spell of his remarkable high-pitched voice.

Bakhan finally returned to his homeland in 1995 and his family made a new life for themselves in the capital, Nouakchott. As a teenager he harboured dreams of becoming a pilot one day, but around 2000 a series of health problems interrupted his schoolwork. Bakhan was by all accounts a brilliant pupil - "I was passionate about my schoolwork," he says - but he ended up having to alternate his lessons with lengthy hospital stays. Bakhan eventually abandoned his dreams of flying and decided to let his voice soar instead. "I threw myself into music body and soul," he declares, "I actually started out performing with a rap group, but I soon realised that my voice wasn't shown off at its best in hip-hop." Bakhan went on to diversify, performing in local nightclubs as well as at embassy receptions and, most importantly, began to earn money from music for the first time in his life.

Showing a keen sense of professionalism and natural ambition, Bakhan soon decided that the local music scene in Nouakchott was not big enough. So he headed off for a taste of frenetic Dakar nightlife instead. "I knew that if I wanted to  progress musically, I had to be where the action was," Bakhan says, "I had to be in a place where music was constantly evolving and where there was plenty of competition around." A stint at the "Ecole Nationale des Arts" in Dakar in 2006 gave the budding young musician a further chance to experiment and evolve. 

Meanwhile, Bakhan was steadily honing his own distinctive style, working on ways of adapting traditional Mauritanian music for contemporary ears. "I think it's important to stay rooted in tradition," he says, "Tradition gives you a sense of identity. But if you want to promote a culture you're proud of, you have to be able to adapt that tradition and modernise it so you can take your music to a wider audience." Bakhan's mix of incisive vocals, lilting harmonies and swinging rhythms recalls a distant air of bossa nova at times. But his current album N’Daysan puts across a powerful message to his compatriots, calling for unity, fraternity and solidarity in his homeland.

In Mauritania, musicians who dare to pioneer a mix of the traditional and the modern can be counted on the fingers of one hand. There's the Mauritanian diva Malouma, another female singer by the name of Noura - and Bakhan! All of these artists are committed to promoting Mauritanian music and culture abroad. Meanwhile, Bakhan's big dream at home is to break though ethnic and artistic divides that insist on pigeon-holing musicians in one slot forever. The 29-year-old singer also wages a strong political and social campaign in his lyrics, alerting his compatriots to the plight of the nation's youth. "Mauritania can pride itself on the fact that it has good sports players, good musicians and good artists," he says, "But the country has a lot of social problems and ethnic divisions in Mauritania mean that young people are not free to do what they want with their lives."

Bakhan, who declares that he is ready to "use my voice as a weapon" in the fight for national unity, believes that the future lies in his countrymen admitting their differences and learning to live together in racial harmony. If Bakhan wins RFI's "Découvertes" award in Lomé on 25 November, thousands of car horns will blast out his triumph in Nouakchott. All the more so as three days later, Mauritanians are due to take to the streets to celebrate National Independence Day.