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Noura Mint Seymali is Mauritania’s biggest female star. She comes from a family of griots - traditional storytellers and praise singers who are custodians of the culture and oral historians. Her stepmother, Dimi Mint Abba, is one of the most famous Mauritanian musicians of all time – and one of the first to bring traditional Mauritanian music to a global audience.

Noura Mint Seymali is following in those big footsteps, and consciously making her music more accessible internationally by mixing in modern instruments and genres. She is however fiercely proud of the tradition she represents, and as she tells TIA, all her songs include the ardin, a stringed instrument unique to Mauritania and exclusively played by women.

Noura’s latest album, which dropped in November 2025, is called Yenbett.

Also in 2025, she was honoured with the Worldwide Music Expo – Womex – Artist of the Year Award.