Chili Houritki

One of the few singers from Chad to emerge onto the international stage, Mitchala was first heard of half a dozen years ago on Frédéric Galliano's ‘African Divas’ tour. Like Mali's Rokia Traoré, she spent a chunk of her childhood growing up in Europe and, the result is that her music strikes a similarly easy and natural balance between tradition and modernity. Working with Galliano introduced her to electronic music and hip-hop, but there's no trace of either on Chili Houritki. Her fusion of African roots and Western pop sensibilities is far more natural and organic with predominantly acoustic arrangements by Camel Zekri. The combination of a smooth Parisian production with her regular musicians (rather than French session players) maintains the felicitous feeling that here is a performer who knows how to enjoy the best of both worlds. Singing in Chadian Arabic, there are several other echoes which can be easily detected – at her rawest on ‘Al Slam Alena’ her voice sounds like a cross between the Mauritanian diva Malouma and the Wassoulou soul of Oumou Sangaré. In her more pop vein, as on the lovely ‘Imane’ and ‘Hirate’, the double-tracked voices bring to mind Guinea's Las Hijas del Sol. Yet there's enough individuality to render the obvious comparisons irrelevant. If World Circuit's Fatoumata Diawara was the African female singing discovery of 2011, Mitchala could well be that of 2012.