Dankoroba

Dankoroba is Mali-born, Montréal-based Djely Tapa’s solid follow-up to 2021’s Barokan (reviewed in Songlines #164). Daughter of the venerable singer Kandia Kouyaté and Djely Bouya Diarra, Djely was born into a griot family stretching back to the 13th century and there is something of the evangelist for the Mandinka tradition about her. Something of a moderniser, too, as she laces her griot inheritance – pointedly voiced here in Maninka, Khassonké, Bamana and French – with an Afro-futurist gloss. Echoes of the multiple influences at play are plentiful, her mother’s ability to turn base material into veritable anthems obvious in the defiant lament of ‘Esclave’, the pulsing title-track invoking ‘the power of transformation [in the face of ] ecological crises and inequality,’ and the Grace Jones garbed in Gallic pomp of ‘Ndö’. Pluralism is most pronounced on the electronica-edged ‘Kègnèkègnè’ where disco and hard funk collide with Gloria Estefan. Guest appearances by Vieux Farka Touré (the rousing ‘Malien’) and Adama Yalomba (the buoyant, hands-in-the-air ‘Magossara’) alongside Jean Massicotte’s spot-on production add lustre to Tapa’s agreeable agenda.