Modibo sidibe oumou sangare mogoya

27 years after her debut, Moussolou, an album straddling tradition and modernity that featured, for the time, daring lyrics denouncing polygamy and instead calling for female empowerment, made her an instant star in Mali and elsewhere, Oumou Sangaré's sixth LP, Mogoya, continues that conversation.

In some ways she hasn't changed at all.

Oumou sang

With grooves infectious enough to rattle a pop music skeptic, she sails over rhythms and melodies that, no matter how dressed up in European production sheen, never truly betray her Wassoulou-region roots. In the eight years since her last release, she's continued touring, running a hotel in Bamako, branding her name on rice as well as automobiles, and all the while demonstrating the power women have in place where female circumcision is still performed and education isn't necessarily a priority.

Here, she's working with a new label, and that label's owner, Laurent Bizot, produced her in way that certainly felt new to her. And sure, there are