Can a 15-passenger van bring Mali to Somerville? Yes, and we have to thank the diva Kandia Kouyaté and her band for their visit last Sunday. Some of her Malian fans thanked her on stage by showering her with cash and even jewels — those of us who came less well prepared (and less well dressed) did our best to make our feelings known by shouting (as prompted by Kouyaté herself), "I love you!"

We were all in her power. Kouyaté began the show with an elaborate introduction of the band, and even the musicians seemed to bend to her commanding presence, playing their solos for her personal delight. The ensemble — kora, ngoni (a lute-like instrument), balafon (xylophone), percussion, one back-up singer, and, improbably but delightfully, an electric guitar processed through a synthesizer — locked together in supple support of one another and of Kouyaté’s voice, displaying a remarkable range of color and mood. When solos emerged, it was with expressive individuality — particularly the jazz-like elaborations of melody on the balafon by Mahamadou Diabaté. And Adoubakar Diabaté plays his electric guitar and guitar synthesizer in a completely individual manner, with a capo permanently fixed to the seventh fret, gentle fingerpicking, hammer-ons, and sustained notes combining to create the sense that his guitar is always on, that he is merely shaping the sound it gives of its own accord rather than coaxing noises out of it.

But the star was Kouyaté, with an alto voice of immense power and a delivery that made her Maninka lyrics more intelligible to me than most I have heard in English. In Mali she’s called "La Dangereuse" for her ability to transfix her listeners; the true danger in seeing her perform is that she puts all but the greatest singers to shame. Yet she keeps herself relatively inaccessible: she rarely performs outside Mali and records even less. Is it any wonder that one of her wealthy patrons once gave her a private plane so that she could sing for him more often? The performance she delivered at the Somerville Theatre was priceless.