Performance - 2 July 2011
Distinguished diva from a point north of Timbuktu
Family connections don't always provide a leg-up on the ladder of life. Take Khaira Arby, for instance. Despite being a cousin of the mighty Ali Farka Toure, she was forbidden by her father to pursue her musical calling and instead bore a family. But domesticity couldn't extinguish that dream and a resolute Khaira reinvented herself. And aren't we glad. From a country where great singers grow on (baobab) trees, Khaira sits at the metaphorical top table and is known as 'the nightingale of Mali's north'. Indeed, while the capital Bamako becomes an ever-crowded musical marketplace, her location in a village near Timbuktu has allowed her to mark her own territory. And just as Timbuktu is a crossroads, Khaira's music heads out in different directions too. Of mixed Berber and Songhai parentage - and singing in Arabic, Songhai, Tamashek, Bambara and French - her spiky, occasionally psychedelicised take on her homeland's varied music has made her a true national hero. Despite Pop's best efforts.

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