Malouma

Malouma's first major appearance was in 1986, when she revealed her fusion style, combining traditional interpretations with more modern developments including blues, jazz, and electro.[2] Her early songs "Habibi habeytou", "Cyam ezzaman tijri" and "Awdhu billah", which openly addressed love, conjugal life and the inequalities between men and women, contrasted strongly with what was considered acceptable in her home country. Nevertheless, they had strong popular appeal, especially for young women. Malouma carefully developed her approach, blending traditional themes with the rich repertoire and instrumentation of modern popular music.[5] Typically, her compositions are based on the traditions of classical Arab poets, such as Al-Mutanabbi and Antarah ibn Shaddad, whose verses cover political criticism, personal sacrifice and support for the weak and oppressed.[14] She has also drawn on traditional Mauritanian themes, modernizing both the lyrics and musical presentation.[15]

Mike Del Ferro and Malouma performing at the US embassy for students from the University of Nouakchott

From the beginning, Malouma sang in a variety of languages, including traditional Arabic, Hassania (Mauritanian Arabic), French and Wolof.[16] By singing in various languages, she sought to air her message to a broader audience.[3] It was not long before she appeared on television together with her sister, Emienh, and her brother, Arafat, an instrumentalist. Their style was controversial, especially after the release of her song "Habibi Habeytou" and a 1988 appearance at the Carthage Festival in Tunis, as she addressed social issues, such as poverty, inequality and disease which were not generally acceptable in Mauritania.[10] Her participation in the Carthage event led to her subsequent appearance on Arab satellite channels, giving her greater exposure.[17] Malouma became nationally known and was a sought after performer until a 1991 song about freedom of speech.[18] After being censored for writing songs promoting women's rights and challenging apartheid,[19] she was banned from appearing on television and radio, holding concerts, and was even denied a permanent address.[18] She did not perform anywhere for a lengthy period[18] but in the late 1990s she began to sing in other African countries,[20] in Europe,[9] and in the United States.[21] While she won audiences among the people, Malouma was persecuted by both the moral authorities and authoritarian governments, her music being completely banned until 2003 when a crowd of 10,000 successfully called on President Ould Taya to cancel her censorship.[8][22] Some restrictions still remained until the overthrow of the Ould Taya regime in 2005.[11]

The traditional griots are songs of praise, but Malouma used her voice to speak out against child marriages, racial and ethnic discrimination, slavery and other divisive issues facing a country at the crossroads of the Arab world and Africa.[2] She also sang about illiteracy, HIV/AIDS awareness and in support of children's vaccinations.[3]

Malouma's first album, Desert of Eden was released by Shanachie Records in 1998. When it was produced, she felt that the traditional elements were taken out during production, resulting in "bland electronic pop",[23] though it received good reviews from JazzTimes.[24] In the early 2000s, she began working with a group called the Sahel Hawl Blues made up of ten young Mauritian musicians of different ethnic origins (Moor, Fula, Toucouleur, Sonike, Wolof and Haratin), demonstrating her desire to overcome racial differences. In so doing, she was also able to extend music based on the traditional string instruments of the Moors to include the beat of the djembe, the darbouka, and the bendir frame drum. Led by Hadradmy Ould Meidah, the group supported her desire to modernize traditional music, making it more accessible to the wider world.[22][25] They toured with her in 2004 and 2005[20] and worked with her on her second album, Dunya (Life), which sought to reclaim her musical heritage. Produced by Marabi Records in 2003, the album contained twelve songs which blended harps, lutes and skin drums with electric guitar and bass, and traditional genres like serbat, which usually focuses on a single minor chord, with jazz.[23]

Malouma's album, Nour (Light), was released in France on March 8, 2007 in celebration of International Women's Day.[26] Produced by Marabi/Harmonia Mundi, it featured a broad mix of music from lullabies to dance music. Malouma's singing was supported by a group of fifteen studio musicians on a variety of electronic and traditional instruments.[11] Reviews were mixed,[27][28] but the CD ranked as number 14 on the World Music Charts Europe by September 2007.[29] After a hiatus from music to focus on politics, Malouma relaunched her musical career on October 5, 2014. Dressed in a blue toga, she presented her new album, Knou, at a special event, appearing on stage for the first time since her election seven years earlier.[13][30] She chose to call it "Knou", which is the name of a dance usually performed by women in western Mauritania.[31] The album focused on traditional dancing melodies,[10] but bridged generations by adding modern twists. Weaving jazz, rock and reggae rhythms, into the traditional songs, it was well received.[32]

Music festival appearances have been a large part of Malouma's career. The first time she participated in an international festival was in Carthage, Tunisia in 1988; her performance proved to be highly successful.[8] Malouma returned to the stage in August 2003, appearing at the Festival des Musiques Métisses in Angoulême, France, combining traditional Moorish music with a more modern approach in numbers from her album Dunya. She was not only selected as "artiste de l'année" (artist of the year) but was nicknamed "Diva des Sables" (Diva of the Sands).[8] Her success continued in October of the same year at the World Music Expo in Seville, Spain, where she was selected by the jury as a featured performer.[33][34] One of the highlights of Angoulême's Festival des Musiques Métisses was her nostalgic rendering of "Mreïmida". The song proved equally popular in Mauritania at the 2004 Nouakchott Festival of Nomadic Music. She was finally permitted to take part after her ban had been lifted. She appeared there with another female Mauritanian star, Dimi Mint Abba, and was accompanied by the French pianist Jean-Philippe Rykiel on a synthesizer.[8]

Malouma toured in the United States in 2005 with appearances in Ann Arbor, Michigan, Chicago, Illinois, Boston and Cambridge, Massachusetts, Lafayette, Louisiana (for the Festival International de Louisiane), before finishing in New York City.[35] Two years later, Malouma participated in the 32nd Paléo Festival in Nyon, Switzerland, which focused on musicians from North Africa.[36] She also appeared in the 2010 edition of the Førde International Folk Music Festival, held in Førde, Norway under the theme of "freedom and oppression".[37][38] At the 2012 Festival International des Arts de l’Ahaggar in Abalessa, Algeria, she was chosen as one of the three artists to perform in the grand finale, receiving acclaim for the balance of instrumentals and vocals, the composition, and her two back-up vocalists.[39] Her 2013 performance at the World of Music, Arts and Dance Festival (WOMAD), held in Wiltshire, England included a "Taste The World" event where performers not only sang, but prepared a dish from their country. Malouma's lamb-filled pancakes[40] were a highlight of the festival presenting an up-front and personal encounter with the musician for the audience. Her second stage appearance at the event also brought praise for her rock-star performance embracing modern music.[41] In 2014, Malouma participated in the Meeting of the Arts of the Arab World, a festival in Montpellier, France,[42] as well as at the Parisian Festival Rhizomes.[43]

Malouma Mediah was involved in a project in 2009, to relocate 9,000 slum-dwelling families from the outskirts of the city into inner city neighborhoods. She insisted that for health reasons, improvements would first have to be made to the infrastructure.[51] In August 2011, the International Union for Conservation of Nature appointed Malouma as Goodwill Ambassador for Central and West Africa. The position required her to raise awareness of environmental problems with a view to introducing sustainable solutions. On her appointment she commented: "I am delighted at the confidence that IUCN just placed in me. I am deeply honored. I will do my best to fulfill this great responsibility."[52][53] In September 2012, she performed in a concert given during the 2012 IUCN World Conservation Congress held on Jeju Island, South Korea.[54]

As a result of the Mauritanian caste system, the development of traditional music in Mauritania has been supported by just a few families, threatened by a closed culture in which there are limited opportunities for support. As families have no means of preserving their music, or recording it, their creations are often forgotten owing to the absence of family members interested in ensuring their survival. The situation has been compounded by rules forbidding their support from outside the family environment.[55] Concerned that the musical traditions of the country were vanishing,[56] in 2006, Malouma urged the government to create a school to preserve the country's music heritage, even introducing a measure to Parliament.[6] In 2011, she created the Malouma Foundation in support of the preservation of the national musical heritage.[32] The foundation aims to protect and preserve the Arab, African, and Berber roots of music in Mauritania and, to that end, is collecting and storing music from throughout the country to both preserve it and make it available for other uses, including education.[57] Long concerned that the Moorish music traditions of her country were being replaced by the Malian and Moroccan music preferred by younger people,[12] in 2014, she created a Mauritanian Music Festival.[13]

When she produced Nour in 2007, Malouma collaborated with the painter, Sidi Yahia, hoping to create visual images to illustrate the songs in the album. Eleven paintings resulted from the joint venture[32] and Malouma and Yahia presented cultural discussions about their works titled "Regarder la musique, écouter la peinture?" (Watch the music, listen to the painting?) In 2013 a month-long exhibit was presented to showcase the paintings and the music which inspired them at a gallery in Nouakchott.[58] In 2015, after receiving a grant from the Arab Culture Fund, Malouma convinced musicians to collaborate with artists when recording their music. The project aimed at collecting music from six artists and producing an album of their works. Malouma has continued to press for the establishment of a music school, though it would require overcoming taboos on family restrictions in regard to musical legacy.[56]