YITA (Deep Water)

Ivorian-American singer Fely Tchaco released her fifth album on International Women’s Day (March 8), a gesture intended to underline its themes of empowerment and social conscience. This fifth album by Tchaco, San Francisco-based and hailing from the Mande-related Gouro people of southern Ivory Coast, has personal and political currency, with tracks telling of Tchaco’s journey as singer, dancer, mother and storyteller – and the humanitarian crisis the world is facing. The title-track takes its cue from Tchaco’s 2016 visit to refugee camps in the Mediterranean and the loss of life at sea en route – a catastrophe also given musical form by the likes of Toumani Diabaté, Nitin Sawhney and Anoushka Shankar.

Intro-ed by flute, low-rolling percussion and a swelling chorus, ‘Yita’ is a heartfelt Gouro-language ode to our commonality, a sentiment similarly expressed on tracks including ‘Tile Tete’, sung in French, and the horn-heavy ‘It’s Never Too Late’, in which vocoder and guitar mess with Tchaco’s lovely (English-language) vocals. Indeed, while there’s palpable joy in the album’s mix of Afrobeat, Afro-pop and electronics, heavy-handed production detracts from Tchaco’s intrinsic elegance. Of the less busy tracks, the Gouro-sung ‘Zaouli’ celebrates the eponymous rhythm and its masked dance, a celebration of female beauty.