I’m fine with music in languages I can’t understand—even if my Spanish is sucky, I can tell when a song’s about falling in love, when it’s about getting some, and when it’s about Jesus. But Dobet Gnahoré—the Ivory Coast-based chanteuse whose American debut, Na Afriki, is freshly released—sings in Dida, Malinké, Wolof, and several other African languages, and I don’t even know where to start understanding it. But all it took was the 57-second a cappella “Loubou” to render everyone in my living room spellbound. Gnahoré has an extraordinary voice, and she wields it in so many unique and distinct ways that not only do we not get tired of hearing her, but it doesn’t even occur to us that we can’t understand the lyrics. Gnahoré’s voice has an extraordinary personality—one second she’s a diva, belting out R&B over a soft-rock backing of acoustic guitar and percussion, and the next she’s telling us how it is, ripping the mic right into her hands (or it sounds like she is, anyway) and preaching lyrics directly out of the stereo.

Gnahoré’s musical backing is pleasant enough at most times, uninspired at others. It’s plagued by the vice of Putamayo blandness at certain moments (in all fairness, she’s toured before with those purveyors of mild world music). Sometimes her backing instruments are a cool swing-meets-bongos-meets-trip-hop deal, and sometimes they sound like “oh…African,” but her voice is always center stage. When she accompanies herself as melody, harmony, and rhythm section on “Inyembezi Zam,” she’s colossal.—M.R.

SOUNDS LIKE: Ani DiFranco fronting Paul Simon’s backing band. WISH FOR: The ability to sing along.