Rokia Traore was born in 1974 in the Belidougou region of Mali near the Mauritanian border, but her childhood was spent following her father, a diplomat, wherever his appointments took them. So Rokia grew up in a very protected environment which mixed tradition and modernity, especially at a musical level. Her father played the saxophone and her sisters sang traditional songs during family ceremonies. As for the young Rokia, she listened to jazz (like her brother) and to blues(like her father) and everything that a teenager of the Western world listened to in the 70's and 80's. Not being from a family of griots(a class of travelling poets, musicians, and storytellers in parts of West Africa) modern music wasn't in the least bit taboo in her family. However, Rokia didn't by any means turn away from the musical environment of her native land.

The griot tradition and the great Malian voices were not a secret to her. Endowed with an exceptional voice, Rokia studied with a friend of her father's, the old master Massamou Welle, who helped the young woman to form her voice. After coming of age and after several trips back and forth to her country, Rokia settled there. It didn't take her long to start writing her own songs, whose western influences mixed with traditional sounds seduced an entire public of her generation and students.

By the time Rokia was twenty, she was already well known in her country. Musician Ali Farka Toure, a star in Mali, discovered Rokia. He put the finishing touches on her guitar training and encouraged her to compose. In 1995, the song "Finini" was a great success. Rokia did many concerts. She was a brilliant young woman who preferred to study music in her own country rather than enrols in a major European university. This was how, after spending some time in a school in Belgium, she ended up returning to Mali to make her career in music. She studied in Bamako (the capital of Mali) and worked with the musician Souleymane Koly. Although invited to MASA (Marche des Arts et des Spectacles en Afrique), she chose to refuse the invitation and continue working.

The real starting point was in 1997 when Rokia competed for Radio France Internationale's "Decouvertes Afrique" award (an award honouring new talent). With her dry guitar accompanied by several traditional instruments, she performed a song about children, "Mouneissa". Presided by Papa Wemba, the jury was instantly seduced by this high-pitched voice and exceptional musical personality. She won the prize against others who were more well known and experienced.

From this day on, her fame went beyond Mali's borders. After two big back-to- back concerts in Bamako, sponsored by Oumou Sangare and Habib Koite, in December '97, Rokia set off for Europe to record her album. Recorded in Amiens, in the north of France, "Mouneissa" was released at the end of March '98. Entirely composed by the young woman, the nine titles were written and sung in bambara(the second language of Mali). Her musical talent is greatly due to her talent as a writer. Her lyrics are long poems, which are tender and philosophical and strongly tinted with blues.

In May, Rokia began her European tour in Brussels, which took her to Switzerland, Germany and then to Paris on May 25th. She was also invited to numerous festivals such as the "Musiques Metisses"(ethnically mixed music) in Angouleme(in the southwest of France) at the end of June or to La Rochelle's famous summer music festival "Francofolies" in July. Since her first album, Rokia hasn't stopped touring. She has been invited to Midem 99 (Marche International du Disque) -the International record market in Cannes for a concert alongside Sally Nyolo and Kadja Nin.

Rokia's second album, "Wanita", released in 2000, proved a major hit both with music fans and the critics. Indeed, several prestigious newspapers and leading music mags - including "Le Monde" (France), "Billboard" and the "New York Times" (U.S.) and "Folk Roots" (the U.K.) - hailed "Wanita" as the best album of the year! Following the sales success of her second album, Rokia hit the road again in 2001, playing a series of July dates across Italy, Switzerland, France and Spain before heading off to America in August. 

In September 2003, the young artist came back to the front of the musical scene with a new album entitled "Bownboi". The album which was recorded mostly in Mali alternated African sounds with Folk moods and Rokia’s fine voice expresses itself aptly on very diverse tracks. While "M’Bifo" celebrated the artist’s husband’s birthday, "Mariana"—a duet with singer Ousmane Sacko—offered a completely different feel. The well-known and prestigious Kronos Quartet also brought the album an interesting opening towards contemporary classical music.

On the album cover Rokia decided to show herself with a shaven head, in order to illustrate her independence and will to break away from tradition.

She performed in Paris on October 17th and 18th 2003 before setting off on a worldwide tour.

Rokia's success continued to build and her popularity soon spread way beyond the French-speaking world. In December 2003, "Bowmboï" was voted Best World Music Album of the Year in the end-of-year list compiled by British radio station BBC Radio 3.

In 2004, Rokia made her mark on the live front, performing at a number of leading French music festivals such as Les Vieilles Charrues. She then headed out across the Atlantic for an extensive tour which included dates across Jamaica, Canada and the United States. The concerts were timed to coincide with the international release of her album. October 2004 saw the release of a live DVD of a concert the singer had recorded a few months earlier at La Cigale, in Paris. On this occasion, she had been joined on stage by the Anglo-Nigerian star Keziah Jones.

In the first quarter of 2005, Rokia concentrated on the live circuit, performing some 50 concerts, essentially in France. This period of intensive touring boosted the success of "Bowmboï" whose sales soon topped 100,000, earning Rokia a gold disc.

In October and November 2005, Rokia returned to the U.S. to take part in a special Billie Holliday tribute tour. On this occasion, the young African star shared the stage with leading American singers such as Fontella Bass, Joan Osborne, Dianne Reeves and Nancy Wilson.

After completing the Billie Holiday tribute tour in 2005, Rokia spent an intensive period travelling back and forth between Amiens and Bamako and then decided to take a well-earned break. During her rest period she looked after her young son, but still found time to produce the music for "2147, l'Afrique" (a stage musical by Jean-Claude Gallotta and Moïse Touré) which premièred in Bamako on 19 September 2006. Rokia also took advantage of her break from touring to start preparing material for a new album.

Following the best-selling commercial success of "Bowmboi" (which earned her a gold disc for sales), Rokia was under a certain pressure not to disappoint fans with her new album and she decided to take her time preparing and recording it. The singer went down to the south-west of France for several months and took up residence near Bordeaux, working in "La Fabrique", a well-known studio down there. In an attempt to hone her new album to musical perfection, she not only shipped over a producer from the U.K. but also imported dozens of vintage guitars and old-fashioned amps.

As has been the case with most of her albums to date, Rokia wrote most of the songs on her new album herself - apart from her cover of the Billie Holiday classic "The Man I Love" (which she recorded in English). This impressive cover showed off the full extent of Rokia's vocal talent as she kicked off the song in a resonant blues style and moved progressively though to African scat. Her new album, "Tchamanché" (released in Europe on 19 May 2008) found Rokia innovating with her usual audacity. This time round, the singer integrated the vintage sound of Gretsch guitars (an instrument more traditionally associated with rhythm'n'blues).

Rokia's new album sounded resolutely more modern with touches of blues and rock here and there. But the singer remained profoundly attached to Malian culture, singing lyrics in Bambara and strumming the n'goni (the traditional African instrument she had used on previous albums). Keeping in touch with her Malian roots, she decided to release her new album in Bamako on 16 May 2008, performing a special concert on this occasion organised by the Centre Culturel Français at the Studio Blonba.

On 20 April 2008, Rokia took to the stage once again, bringing the house down at the "Printemps de Bourges" festival in France. On 10 June 2008, the singer performed at La Cigale, in Paris, then went on to assure a French and European tour.

June 2008