Pamela Badjogo

Pamela Badjogo is a Gabonese singer and songwriter. Born in Libreville in 1982, she started out singing in her church choir. In 2005 she moved to Bamako, Mali, on a scholarship, where she began singing and recording, and in 2017 she settled in France. She released her first solo album, Mes Couleurs, in 2015, and was a finalist for the RFI Prix Découvertes in 2016. She was also one of the original members of Les Amazones d’Afrique.

Sound and influences

Her music is usually described as Afro-jazz or Afro-pop, mixing Bantu-style highlife and afrobeat, according to the Songlines review of her album Yiëh. She plays voice and guitar. Her second album, Kaba (2020), was recorded in Bamako, Accra, Berlin and Paris, and she says her music grows with her travels, the cultures she meets and a blending (“métissage”) that is central to her identity. She won the Prix des Musiques d’Ici in 2022.

For sync and licensing

Her songs sit between pop and Afro-jazz, with warm vocals and guitar-led arrangements. That makes the music a fit for lifestyle, travel and documentary images, and for stories with a female or humanist point of view. (This is a reading of the music only; this section makes no claim about existing placements.)

Themes

Her songs address women’s rights and opposition to gender-based violence, and Kaba covers feminism and gender equality. In 2017 she directed the programme “Moussoyayé Koba yé”, which brought artists together against gender-based violence.