Couleur

Three years after her masterpiece, Miziki, Ivorian singer Dobet Gnahoré has now taken up the challenge to produce another highly danceable opus, Couleur, surely more mainstream but definitely connected to ancient and present-day music trends in the Ivory Coast. Gnahoré spent the entire year 2020 in Abidjan, taking inspiration from local talented artists, designers and top session musicians in town. Together with long-time companion, Colin Laroche de Féline, and national leading arranger, Tam Sir Junior Yihe, Gnahoré has built 12 tracks with a groovy guitar band that can easily be played in open air markets of West Africa. Whatever the musical context within which she evolves, Dobet Gnahoré always manages to stir us with her hope-inspired lyrics and her constant loyalty to the emancipation of women in Africa. On the first single, ‘Lève-Toi’, she sings, ‘when all hope is gone, ooh, get up, get up! Tomorrow will be better, get up,’ and in ‘Yakané’ she states ‘the young girls of today are the strong women of tomorrow.’ Her spirituality comes across in several songs, such as ‘Zaliguéhi’ and ‘Rédemption’. Altogether, taking five Ivorian languages, some French, a pinch of English, and adding to this some funk and regional rhythms, you get the perfect recipe.