Introducing: wordsofAzia

“Wihegou is a genre from Ivory Coast. It is a very specific Bété way of singing during funerals”, wordsofAzia says, her breath raspy with solemnity. The French-Ivorian singer – of Bété descent, like compatriot Dobet Gnahoré – is seated on a wooden chair in her parents’ home, backing a library of her father’s vinyl, which, she highlights, was collected over several decades.

Her just-released debut album, MODERN WIHEGOU, arrives as a fusion of soul, jazz and traditional Ivorian Bété rhythms, the singer attempting to connect a newer generation of listeners to ancestral melodies that shaped her childhood. “The idea of MODERN WIHEGOU is to reinvent [wihegou] and to mix it with modern sounds,” she says.

wordsofAzia began honing her musical ideas four years ago at her family home in Sekouan, a countryside town in the north of the West African country. Here, her mother sang her traditional Bété songs, while her father played tracks from African greats including Fela Kuti, Cesária Évora and Asa, offering a mix of the ancestral and contemporary that is evident on her latest release.

Recorded across Dakar, Paris, Ivory Coast and London, MODERN WIHEGOU offers up ten emotive, optimistic and prayerful anthems. Collaborators include fellow Ivorians Yao Rose and Steven Amoikon, French bassist Keïna Etenor, Congolese musician Tshiala Changachanga, Malian kora player Moussa Mousskabira Traore and rising Nigerian Afrobeats artist First Klaz.

‘Seh keh youlou / Yala néh me na yilime wo / Lagô zouzou mou libihé na tchra woh’ (When the night comes / sleep doesn’t approach my eyes / God’s presence is all I think about) she sings soulfully on ‘Sehkeyoulou’, her gentle vocals hovering above jazzy flutes, soulful piano chords and Moussa Traoré’s kora. She tag-teams with Nigerian Afrobeats artist First Klaz on the album’s outro, ‘Than All [2]’, further exploring West African heritage through First Klaz’s Fulani rhythms.

She credits travel for the breadth of her musical influence: “It just expands my mind; I feel like there is so much to discover outside. It also teaches you so much about yourself and how one can improve as a human being. For me, it just expands my horizon, especially how I think or how I perceive things.”

With her soulful Bété chants and vibrant gbegbe (a popular Ivorian dance) percussion, wordsofAzia warps the listener into a sacred ambience that keeps the music gushing with catharsis. “I just want the listeners to be more curious about themselves, more in-tune with their faith, who they are as a person, their culture as well, and I want them to feel peaceful at the end of it. It is a message of hope, faith and being connected to yourself, [your] identity and [your] heritage. Celebrate it! There is power in it! There is beauty in it,” she says.

+ MODERN WIHEGOU is out now. ‘Liwouho’ features on this issue’s Top of the World compilation, track 11