Mounira Mitchala, a major voice of Chadian culture

Mounira Mitchala, born Mounira Khalil Alio on 19 September 1979 in N’Djamena, is a Chadian artist. A court clerk by training and currently head of the documentation and library division at the Ministry of Justice and Human Rights, she began her music career in the late 1990s.

Self-taught, she learned by working alongside local and international musicians such as H’Sao, Tiken Jah Fakoly and Ismaël Lô. In 2005, after graduating from ENAM, she toured Africa, France and the United States with Frédéric Galliano’s African Divas.

Her style — world music rooted in both traditional and modern Chadian sounds — took shape in two albums: Talou Lena (2008) and Indépendance (2012). She won the RFI Discovery Prize in 2007 and was made a Knight of the Order of Civic Merit the same year. In 2012 she was named best female artist from Central Africa at the Kora Awards and, in 2014, best female artist from French-speaking Africa at the AFASA.

Also active in film, she has acted in Abouna and Daratt by director Mahamat-Saleh Haroun. A goodwill ambassador for the FAO (2013) and Malaria No More (2014), she worked with World Vision Chad in 2019 to support girls’ schooling and fight early marriage.

In 2011 she founded the arts and culture association Tchimema to promote Chadian music and culture. In 2019 she was selected for the Institut français “Visas pour la création” programme. In 2020, during the Covid-19 pandemic, she recorded songs to raise awareness of protective measures and took part in the video Le Cri du silence, which denounces violence against women and girls.

She has also set up a foundation to help people in need, promote Chadian arts and culture, and support women and children. Her social and artistic commitment makes her a major figure of Chadian and African culture.