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Journal Archives for Rokia Traore

  • Rokia Traoré 2013 sq2 by Mathieu Zazzo
    Monday, April 22, 2013
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    Rokia Traoré to Perform on "Later ... with Jools Holland" on BBC Two, "Woman's Hour" on BBC Radio 4

    Rokia Traoré will be a guest on BBC Two's Later ... with Jools Holland this week, performing songs from her new album, Beautiful Africa. She and her band play "Kouma" on Tuesday's live show and "Mélancolie" and "Tuit Tuit" on Friday's show. This week's programs also include performances from Phoenix, Eric Church, Laura Marling, Petula Clark, and more. Tuesday morning, Traoré will discuss the album and perform "Ka Moun Kè" on BBC Radio 4's Woman's Hour.

  • Rokia Traoré: "Beautiful Africa" [cover]
    Monday, April 8, 2013
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    Rokia Traoré's "Beautiful Africa" Released in Europe, Earns Five Stars in Guardian, Observer, Daily Telegraph, Financial Times

    Rokia Traoré’s new album, Beautiful Africa, following last week's release in France, is out this week in the UK, the rest of Europe, and Canada, with the US release to follow at a later date. The album has been met with great critical acclaim, earning perfect five-star reviews from the Guardian, which calls her "Africa's most inventive singer-songwriter," Observer, Daily Telegraph, and Financial Times. Uncut calls it "a career highpoint." Traoré recorded an intimate version of the album track "Ka Moun Kè" in the halls of le Trianon in Paris; watch it here, where you can also watch her recent appearance on Radio France's Vinyl Radio.

  • Rokia Traoré: Songlines cover, April 2013
    Friday, March 15, 2013
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    Rokia Traoré Announces UK Tour, European Festival Dates; New Album, "Beautiful Africa," Earns Five Stars in Songlines

    Rokia Traoré has announced a series of new tour dates in the UK for May. She celebrates the April release of her new album, Beautiful Africa, with a tour of France, Switzerland, and Luxembourg and will perform at a number of European summer festivals, including Roskilde and a return to the UK for Glastonbury and WOMAD. Traoré is on the cover of Songlines, which gives Beautiful Africa a perfect five stars. The Chicago Reader says the new album "marks a major transformation and a huge step forward artistically." The LA Times says "Beautiful Africa ... confirms the album title's truth."

  • Rokia Traoré: "Mélancolie" [video]
    Tuesday, February 26, 2013
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    Watch: Rokia Traoré's "Mélancolie" Video from Her Forthcoming Album, "Beautiful Africa"

    Rokia Traoré, whose new album, Beautiful Africa will be released in April 2013 in Europea and Canada by Nonesuch Records, with a US release to follow, has unveiled the video for the album track "Mélancolie." The video, directed by Romain Carciofo, premiered on Slate Afrique and can now be seen here. Beautiful Africa is available for pre-order now in the Nonesuch Store and includes an instant download of the title track. Traoré has already announced several European spring tour dates and summer festivals, including Roskilde and Glastonbury.

  • Rokia Traoré: "Beautiful Africa" [cover]
    Thursday, January 31, 2013
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    Nonesuch Records to Release Singer/Songwriter Rokia Traoré’s "Beautiful Africa" April 9

    Rokia Traoré’s Beautiful Africa will be released on April 9, 2013, by Nonesuch Records in Europe and Canada, with a US release to follow. The record was produced by English musician John Parish (PJ Harvey, Eels, Sparklehorse) and recorded at Toybox Studios in Bristol, UK. Its lyrics are sung in the Malian–born Traoré’s native languages of French and Bambara, as well as some English. The Guardian premiered the title track this morning, calling it "brilliant." Traoré was the first artist to be announced for the 2013 Glastonbury festival line-up; additional festival and tour dates will be announced shortly.

  • Rokia Traoré 2012 by Franck Socha
    Wednesday, December 19, 2012
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    Nonesuch Records to Release New Album from Singer/Songwriter Rokia Traoré in Early 2013

    Singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist Rokia Traoré has a new album coming in the spring of 2013 on Nonesuch Records; it is the first time Nonesuch will release her record worldwide. Further details about the album and its release will be announced shortly, as will upcoming festival and tour dates. Traoré performs at the Sydney Festival in January. Pitchfork described her most recent record, 2009’s Tchamantché, as “a guitar album of a particularly understated bent ... hauntingly spare yet ridiculously well-defined, the timbre and tone of every string presented in perfect resolution.” And the BBC World Service called it “One of the best albums of the year. An absolute stunner.”

  • Half the Sky: Emmylou Harris, Rokia Traoré, Fatoumata Diawara, Oumou Sangare
    Monday, September 10, 2012
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    Emmylou Harris, Rokia Traoré, Fatoumata Diawara, Oumou Sangare Support "Half the Sky" With Free Downloads

    Emmylou Harris, Rokia Traoré, Fatoumata Diawara, and Oumou Sangare are participating in 30 songs / 30 days, in which female musicians from around the world have come together to support the Half the Sky movement. Through the 30 songs / 30 days project, one song per day is available to download for the month of September and leading up to the October 1 & 2 premiere of Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide, a four-hour PBS documentary inspired by the widely acclaimed book of the same name by Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn. 

  • Rokia Traore
    Thursday, June 21, 2012
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    Rokia Traoré Launches Three-Show Series in London with "Exquisite, Cool, Clear Vocals" (Guardian)

    Rokia Traoré is in London for the first of two major projects she will unveil there this summer. This week, she presents a series of three shows produced by the Barbican based on aspects integral to Malian music and its traditions: Donguili – Donke – Damou (Sing – Dance – Dream). The Guardian gives four stars to Monday's show, citing "Traoré's exquisite, cool, clear vocals," and says "she proved to be as compelling a storyteller as she is singer." In July, she returns to the Barbican for the UK premiere of Desdemona, a collaboration with Toni Morrison and Peter Sellars.

  • Rokia Traore
    Wednesday, November 2, 2011
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    Rokia Traoré Gives NY Premiere of "Desdemona," Collaboration with Toni Morrison, Peter Sellars, at Lincoln Center

    Desdemona, Rokia Traoré's theatrical collaboration with director Peter Sellars and novelist Toni Morrison, receives its NY premiere at Lincoln Center's Rose Theater tonight and tomorrow as part of the White Light Festival. The New York Times describes it as "an interactive narrative of words, music and song about Shakespeare’s doomed heroine, who speaks to the audience from the grave about the traumas of race, class, gender, war—and the transformative power of love." The Los Angeles Times calls it "astonishing ... a great, challenging, haunting and lasting work."

  • Rokia Traore
    Tuesday, October 25, 2011
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    Rokia Traoré to Give US Premiere of "Desdemona," Collaboration with Toni Morrison, Peter Sellars

    Rokia Traoré joins forces with director Peter Sellars and Nobel Prize–winning novelist Toni Morrison to create a new theater piece titled Desdemona, which receive its US premiere at the Zellerbach Playhouse at the University of California in Berkeley this week. It receives its New York premiere next week at Lincoln Center as part of the White Light Festival. The Associated Press says: "Traoré's stage presence is magnetic."

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