Mali singer Oumou Sangaré performing at the Afro Roots Fest concert in the Miami Beach Bandshell on Saturday. Photo by Fernando Gonzalez ©
Most likely, few in the audience understood any words Malian singer Oumou Sangaré sang at the Afro Roots Fest concert at the Miami Beach Bandshell on Saturday. It never mattered. She is a transcendent artist, a preacher, a storyteller, a soul diva who commands the stage with a mix of emotional power and regal elegance, and that voice, a one-of-a-kind instrument that, under her expressive control, cuts through questions of language and traditions and speaks directly to our humanity.
Backed by a tight and powerful seven-piece band comprising guitar, keyboards, bass, drums, kamale ngoni (African harp), and two backup singers, Sangaré essentially presented her most recent release, Timbuktu. She set the tone with the elegiac title track and “Wassoulu Don,” performed (as on the record) with a stern, muscular rock urgency before showing her vocal range in the delicate “Degui Nkelena.”
On a couple of pauses between songs, Sangaré addressed the audience briefly in French and English but didn’t attempt to explain the lyrics. As must happen often when performing in places that don’t speak her language, because she couldn´t count on the meaning of the words to tell the story to this audience, Sangaré became another instrumentalist, the de facto main soloist in her band. She is an expressive and experienced performer who moves about the stage with purpose, smartly pacing her singing, communicating meaning and intention through phrasing, tone, dynamics, and nuance, now painting in primary colors, forceful as if calling to battle, now offering a light touch, a caress perhaps, evoking a loved person or place.
It was a delightful ride in which you held your breath in awe one moment and soon later found yourself singing, dancing, and clapping along. By the end of the evening, we had been somewhere—the power of music by an exceptional performer.