Different Side of a Continent Through her excellent new record, "Beautiful Africa" (Nonesuch), Rokia Traoré, the middle-class daughter of a Malian diplomat, remains honest, curious, feminist, defiant toward anyone who considers her work beneath her station - "Afro-progressive," as she puts it in the title track. Hervé Dulongcourty Rokia Traoré is performing this week as part of the White Light Festival. "Let's talk openly!" she pleads, singing in Bambara, in "Sikey." Your senseless hate will change nothing/I'm an artist/Your opinion means little. Likewise the record sounds defiant toward anyone who expects a certain defined sound from West African music, either within traditional or pop lines. Produced by John Parish, it balances rough and smooth, soft and loud, ngoni and chiming electric guitar, lilt and funk, in sometimes counterintuitive proportions. She's a self-possessed, intense performer, and she'll appear on Friday at 7:30 p.m., at Rose Theater, 60th Street and Broadway, as part of Lincoln Center's White Light Festival. There's a preconcert talk at 6:15 p.m. in Rose Hall's Irene Diamond Education Center by the African-music scholar Banning Eyre: whitelightfestival.org; $25 to $60.