She has more than half a million followers on TikTok, where she released her latest song on 26 August, applauding the military regimes of Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger.

The track praises the leaders who formed a defence pact, the Alliance of Sahel States (AES), after seizing power in coups from 2020 to 2023.

“AES, the march towards freedom! AES, you are right!” go the song’s lyrics set to a catchy melody and featuring a photo montage of their leaders.

“I want my oil, I want my diamond, I want my gold,” she sings.

In another 2022 song dedicated to the Malian leader, the Ivorian diva — whom fans call Mama Africa — pays tribute to the Malian Armed Forces, Fama. “Fama, strength to you!” she sings in a smooth, joyful tone.

The juntas in the three insurgency-hit Sahel states have turned their backs on former colonial power France and sought support from Russia instead to battle jihadist violence.

They also have stormy relations with some of their neighbours, including Côte d’Ivoire, who are deemed to be too close to Paris.

In her song for Mali’s interim leader Colonel Assimi Goita, Kone celebrates Russia’s President Vladimir Putin.

 Her career began in the 1970s with an appearance on Ivorian state television RTI, during which then star presenter Georges Tai Benson was struck by her “pure, limpid” voice and clear “enunciation”.

Rising from backup singer to soloist, Kone moved in the same circles as some of Africa’s greatest artists at the time.

In her heyday, she rubbed shoulders with the likes of South African legend Miriam Makeba — whom she regarded as her “role model” — Cameroon’s Manu Dibango, Congolese singer Tabu Ley Rochereau and Senegalese musicians Youssou N’Dour and Ismael Lo.

Her music draws on that of the Mandinka people, a West African ethnic group.

Kone mainly sings in the Dioula language but has replaced traditional instruments with the guitar, piano and brass.

“She deserves to be a diva,” said TV host Benson. “When she’s on stage, she’s majestic.”

 The walls of Kone’s Abidjan home exhibit her long-standing ties with heads of state — friendships that predate the wave of recent military coups.

Framed photos show the diva posing with former Ivorian presidents Felix Houphouet-Boigny and Henri Konan Bedie — both of whom she says supported her financially — as well as Laurent Gbagbo.

But Kone has since traded the suits and ties of politicians for the uniforms of military officers.

Niger leader General Abdourahamane Tiani in August met the artist in Niamey after she played several concerts in the capital.

A video she shared of Burkina Faso’s 36-year-old President Ibrahim Traore — whom she calls her “son” — greeting her with a kiss on the cheek hit a million views.

“They were all happy to meet me, I gave them my support,” the singer said.

“We all want to be independent,” she said, commending the leaders of the former French colonies.

“These are young boys who have had the courage to stand up and say loud and clear that they want to take their destiny into their own hands.”

“And I say bravo,” she added.

Since coming to power, the Nigerien, Burkinabe and Malian governments have made a priority of retaking control of their countries from separatists and jihadist forces.

Dozens of Burkinabe political dissidents, journalists, judges and human rights activists have been disappeared, detained or enrolled by force into the army to fight jihadist groups.

Meanwhile in Mali, the United Nations, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have accused the army of abuses against civilians. — AFP

Deadlier and more transmissible than previous forms, the mpox strain surging in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) since September, known as the Clade Ib subclade, is spread person-to-person.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) said on Sunday it was considering convening an expert committee to advise on whether to declare an international emergency, as it did during the global mpox outbreak in 2022.

The Clade Ib strain causes skin rashes across the whole body, unlike other strains where lesions and rashes are usually limited to the mouth, face and genitals.

The African Union health agency, Africa CDC, registered 14,479 confirmed and suspected cases of the strain and 455 deaths in DRC as of August 3, representing a mortality rate of around three percent.

But researchers in the vast Central African nation say the mortality rate from the strain can be as much as 10 percent among children.

The Congolese government acknowledged last month an “exponential increase” in cases.

“The disease has been seen in the displacement camps around Goma in North Kivu where the extreme population density makes the situation very critical,” Louis Albert Massing, medical coordinator for Doctors Without Borders in DRC said.

“The risks of explosion are real given the enormous population movements” in the conflict-ridden region, which borders several countries, he added.

Already, the Clade Ib strain has jumped national borders — in the last two weeks, cases have been reported in Uganda, Burundi, Rwanda and Kenya, Rosamund Lewis, the WHO’s technical lead for mpox, told AFP.

‘Raging’

Authorities in the four countries have confirmed mpox cases — Burundi in particular has reported 127 cases — without specifying the strain.

The eight-member East African Community (EAC) has urged governments to educate their citizens on how to protect themselves and prevent the spread of the disease.

Lewis, from the WHO, said it was the first time that the four countries lying to the east of DRC had reported mpox cases.

“Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda are countries that don’t have this disease in an endemic way… that means it’s an extension of the outbreak which is raging in the DRC and in Central Africa generally,” she said.

Africa CDC has also reported 35 suspected and confirmed cases, including two deaths, in Cameroon, 146 cases, including one death, in Congo Brazzaville, 227 cases in the Central African Republic, 24 in Nigeria, five in Liberia and four cases in Ghana.

In West Africa, Ivory Coast recently reported six confirmed non-fatal cases, five of which were in the economic capital Abidjan, without specifying the strain.

Detection capacity

Mpox was first discovered in humans in 1970 in the DRC, then called Zaire.

It has since been mainly limited to certain West and Central African nations. Humans mainly catch it from infected animals, such as when eating bushmeat.

In May 2022, mpox infections surged worldwide, mostly affecting gay and bisexual men.

That spike was driven by a new subtype, dubbed Clade II, which took over from Clade I.

Around 140 people died out of about 90,000 cases across 111 countries.

The outbreak is “still raging”, Lewis said, including in South Africa, which has seen 24 cases, three of which were fatal, but she added it was “controlled” and spreading less.

Mpox remains a global health threat, WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus warned in early July.

Countries are now able to detect cases, Lewis said, pointing to a system of surveillance, laboratories and communication with affected areas.

It is hard to know if there has been “a substantial rise” in cases, or whether “it’s just a matter of increased awareness”, said Maria Van Kerkhove, the WHO’s epidemic and pandemic preparedness and prevention director, who confirmed concern over the Clade Ib strain.

“There are some vaccines that are licensed that can be used for mpox,” she said.

Negotiations between the WHO and affected countries are under way to authorise the use of one, Lewis said.

© Agence France-Presse

At Abidjan’s Femua urban music festival, last weekend in the Ivorian city, Jobarteh went on stage with percussionists, guitarists and a balafon player. In her hands, the 21 strings of the kora — an instrument shaped like a lute and plucked like a harp — were used to create captivating melodies over repeated rhythms.

“The process of getting to learn the kora was different for me than it was for male members of the family,” she said. “The kora is the social instrument that you learn in a community … but being different to everybody else it became difficult for me to be someone that is accepted,” she said.

“It became a very private journey for me, which is very different … to the normal way of learning kora in a family context.”

Jobarteh comes from a family of Gambian griots, respected musical storytellers who pass on West African traditions. Her grandfather Amadu Bansang Jobarteh was a kora master. Her Malian cousin Toumani Diabate was another kora star.

“I don’t know what it was but I do know that I was always attracted to it from a young age and I started playing from a young age,” Jobarteh said.

“Later, it was really when I was around 17, that I started to really take it as ‘this is something that I want to be my profession’ as opposed to just something that I can do.

“So that’s when I really started to study very hard with my dad, as with an aim and a goal of becoming as good as I could on the instrument.”

Her perseverance paid off with international success, working with famous artists as well as a hit with the song Gambia.

“It’s difficult to tell the level of impact that I’ve had on the tradition in terms of other women being able to come through,” she continued.

“Even for me, being a female … it’s still unusual to see and it’s incredibly inspiring for me.

“I feel that something very special is happening when I’m witnessing these classes going on” at her music academy in The Gambia. 

“Wow, this is the change that we are starting to see.” — AFP