From the village of Koungheul to Kaoma’s global Lambada phenomenon, from modelling for Jean-Paul Gaultier in Paris to her own label, Passion Lung Music: Fania Niang has moved through other people’s worlds and built her own. L’Empreinte, her fifth album and first since 2014’s Animiste, is eight songs written, composed and produced entirely by herself, recorded at Pape Armand Boye‘s studio in Dakar and mixed by Arnaud Bascuñana at Studio 180 in Paris.

The title track runs on a Wolof birthday blessing: “mati oye, e agua nan sagua,” one more good year, and a good one. Fania brings it back after every verse, and between each return she builds a different angle on the same self: artist, lover of life, nature, ancient matter frozen for millions of years before regenerating. “I am the imprint of an artist,” she has said. “I will never be a copy, or a robot. We are the original creation, long before any imitation.” When she sings “laissant des traces, mon ADN,” she means it literally: her own DNA on bed sheets, on a cup, pressed into the world.

Sékou Diabaté‘s guitar, Jean Mermoz Deguénou‘s Rhodes piano, Alassane Cissé‘s bass, Laye Lô‘s drums, Edou Manga‘s kora, Moussa Toguola‘s ngoni, and Ibou Calebasse‘s calabash build the arrangement from the ground up, West African tonal tradition sitting flush against acoustic folk. Fania’s Steinway runs through all eight tracks, the one constant across a record eleven years in the waiting.

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