When singer Dobet Gnahore performs, her arms and legs direct — as much as they respond to — the drummers’ changing beats. Also a percussionist and dancer, she brings her physical movements and musical ideas to the traditional sounds she heard while growing up in Ivory Coast, a country that is culturally and linguistically complex.
“I think we have 72 dialects in Ivory Coast,” Gnahore said through a translator. “When I was young, it was normal for me to hear all the different languages, but when I grew up I saw that it is a great wealth to protect and preserve.”
Ivory Coast’s capital, Abidjan, was a hub for African recording, and Gnahore said she took advantage of the opportunities to hear performers from across the continent in the city while she was growing up. The country was also home to the popular band Le Zagazougou, which featured rapid polyrhythms. But she did not have to go far to participate in a range of music and related activities. Her father, renowned drummer Boni Gnahore, co-founded the artists village Ki-Yi M’Bock.
“Ki-Yi is a great pan-African community that wants to give professional training to youths and African artists,” Gnahore said. “The village was inspired by the traditional way of life, with the chief and queen mother, and we were obliged to follow the hierarchy of elders. We had an intense training in all kinds of art, such as painting, dance, theater, sewing and singing. The most important lessons I have kept are work, willpower, sharing, versatility and respect for nature.”
French guitarist Colin Laroche de Feline visited Ivory Coast in 1996 to study with Boni Gnahore but wound up forming a more enduring collaboration with his daughter.
“We started by making small compositions together, and he taught me the (basic) C scale,” Gnahore said. “That’s when I saw he had a lot of things to teach me, and after that everything came naturally.”
The two became musical collaborators, got married and moved to France in 1999. Appropriately, the title of her 2004 disc, “Ana Nekou,” translates as “let’s create together.” That recording and “Djekpa La You” (meaning “children of the world”) in 2010 present a different side to Gnahore’s music than the assertiveness she emphasizes onstage. On the albums, the focus tends to be on quieter songs with more structured melodies and soft harmonies that revolve around her lyrical voice and Laroche’s acoustic guitar, with understated rhythmic shifts.
“With a sweet melody, the message comes across simply and reaches people more easily, and the emotion remains,” Gnahore said.
During the past four years, Gnahore continued touring and paused from recording to raise her children. She also spent that time planning her new disc, “Na Dre” (Contrejour), which brings in sounds from across Africa, such as the Zimbabwean mbira (thumb piano) and Congolese rumba dance rhythms. The title track narrates a painful romance from a woman’s perspective; other songs also take a strong feminist stance, such as “Fourousiri” (about forced marriages) and “Tania” (decrying domestic abuse).
“The more I became a woman, the more I realized difficulties some women have in everyday life,” Gnahore said. “So I wanted to dedicate this album to the woman.”
Of course, none of these issues is limited to Africa. And Gnahore had no trouble communicating beyond words to a Chicago audience during her dynamic performance at Millennium Park’s Jay Pritzker Pavilion in 2010.
“With the African languages that I sing, there are not many people who can understand (them all),” Gnahore said. “But emotion transcends borders, and it remains written inside the listener’s body.”
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When: 8 p.m. Saturday
Where: Old Town School Of Folk Music, 4544 N. Lincoln Ave.
Tickets: $27; 773-728-6000 or oldtownschool.org
