Khaira Arby
Khaira Arby (1959–2018) was a Malian singer known as the Nightingale of Timbuktu. She was born on September 21, 1959, in Timbuktu to a Tuareg father and a Songhai mother. She started singing very young for weddings and festivals and joined a Timbuktu music group when she was eleven.
She later moved to Gao to sing with another troupe, and after a break, she returned to music with the Badema National group. She divorced and then remarried. In 1992, she began a solo career, becoming the first Malian woman to release music under her own name.
Arby gained recognition beyond Mali in 2010. She toured the United States and performed at Pop Montreal in 2010 and the Montreal International Jazz Festival in 2011.
In 2012, jihadists invaded northern Mali, and Arby went into exile in Bamako. In Timbuktu, her family was threatened and her instruments were destroyed. She returned to Timbuktu in 2015 and said that music is not banned in Islam and that people would keep fighting for it.
She sang in several local languages—Songhai, Tamachek, Bambara, and Arabic—and had a distinctive scratchy voice. Her songs addressed sensitive issues, including women’s rights and opposition to female genital mutilation. Musically, she mixed traditional sounds with electric instruments, using instruments like the ngoni, njarka, and drums.
Khaira Arby died on August 19, 2018, in a hospital in Bamako, after heart problems. Her son said she had been treated for heart trouble.
This page was last edited on 2 February 2026, at 19:40 (CET).