Dobet Gnahoré is painted in the colourful make-up of the Ethopian Omo tribe on the cover of her recent fourth record Na Drê.

But the Grammy Award-winner and BBC Radio 3 World Music Award-nominee comes from the Ivory Coast. The performer and polyglot’s mother is Ghanaian and her father is Boni Gnahoré, the master percussionist, actor and singer who founded the artistic village of Ki-Yi M’Bock.

The commune, filled with artists and dancers and performers from across Africa, is covered by palm trees and overlooks the university campus in Ivory Coast’s cultural hub, Abidjan. Aged only 12, Dobet refused to go to school because she wanted to be educated in that hotbed of creativity made by Boni.

It’s no wonder, when asked to describe her music, she says: “It looks like me – it is pan-African”.

“When I was 11 I sung in Bambara. I’d sing in Kikongo,” she continues, “Now I sing in Swahili, Dida, Guere, French.

“But in every song I want to do my own style. I want to keep my own heart but Africa is rich with culture and I have to use as much of it as I can.”

Her fourth album for Belgian label Contre Jour is the first which has not been written in collaboration with her partner, Colin Laroche de Féline, who visited Ki-Yi M’Bock for a three-month placement in 1996 and ended up staying for three years.

(He eventually returned to France and Dobet went with him to form the duo Ano Neko and build her solo career.) De Féline contributes arrangements to Na Drê and remains at the heart of her band alongside virtuoso bass player Clive Govinden and drummer Boris Tchango.

The album features legendary Congolese singer Lokua Kansa and Ivory Coast-born and Paris-based drummer Paco Sery and is another collection of impassioned songs by Dobet.

“I am still very connected to Africa,” she says, “I live in Europe but I am African. I grew up there, I was born there, it’s my continent and I’m a proud African.

“In my music I use the rhythms from every part of Africa and the rhythm from my heart. The songs are inspired by many parts of Africa and I use languages from across Africa.”

The singer is heading to Sussex for three dates as part of her debut full-length UK tour, which has been put together in collaboration with burgeoning Brighton-based club night, African Night Fever.

Promoter Ebou Touray is from the grassroots event which has gone from a cult affair to one of the biggest draws in the city’s world music calendar.

“African Night Fever is special because we are selling African culture through music,” Touray tells The Guide.

"Dobet has a unique style of music and creativity and a love for dance. African dance moves tell stories and having these dancers and Dobet together will bring the true colours of a typical African concert to the stage.”

UK-based African dancers, Ghanaian Ernest Kwame Obeng and Senegal-born Landing Maneh, have been working with Dobet for the last few days putting the finishing touches to the performance. Their styles will dovetail with Dobet’s take on contemporary Western dance – hip hop and even body popping – which she fuses with passionate, traditional African dance: heady Mandinka melodies, Congolese rumba, Ziglibiti and Cameroonian bikoutsi.

Tracks on Na Drê include the bright and breezy, Awili, about friendship. “I want to celebrate friends and friendship. I say when I am sick and when I am happy you are with me. I want to say thank you for everything you give me”.

The title track, Na Drê, is a lament for love, “I talk about hearts and love and the possibility of love. All men and women have love somewhere and when you are in love you cannot think.”

On other tracks, Dobet, from the little-known Bété people, sings of her concerns for the environment and her people.

“I think of myself as a spokesperson for my tribe... If I see something I am unhappy about I put it in a song. That is my tradition and that is why I always have something to say. Lots of terrible things happen in Africa: children being abused and abducted, women being abused by their husbands, and I cannot resist the urge to denounce all these things which have become taboo to talk about. I want to open them up.”

Dobet wants one day to return to Ivory Coast to make a revolutionary club in the mould of Fela Kuti’s Afrika Shrine in Lagos, which became a mecca for African culture, resistance and music.

“I know I will return one day because I am a real Ivory Coast woman. I want to live there, play theatres and create a club like the Shrine.”

She’s always been inspired by outside influences as much as African inspiration – and loves Björk and the Spanish singer Concha Buika.

“When I was young I loved Angelique Kidjo, Zap Mama, Salif Keïta – all the big African stars. We had a radio and listened to European music… to Radio Nostalgic, to chanson française, many of which I know by heart, and I loved Celine Dion for the voice.

“So the old music sounds like me, my life. But now I want to mix traditional and modern music and create a true pan-African music.”

Dobet Gnahoré - Na Drê Dance Brighton Dome Studio Theatre, New Road, Wednesday, October 8. WemsFest, The Westbourne Club, Westbourne, nr Emsworth, West Sussex, Saturday, October 11. Afrikaba Festival, White Rock Theatre, Hastings, Sunday, October 12

Brighton: 7.30pm, £12. Call 01273 709709. Wemsfest, Emsworth: 8pm, £12.50. Visit www.wemsfest.com. Afrikaba Festival, Hastings: 2pm, £15/£7.50. Call 01424 462288.