Afro-pop

Fatoumata Diawara

The Malian singer Fatoumata Diawara (aka Fatou) was born in 1982. As a child she became a member of her father’s dance troupe and was a popular performer of the wildly flailing didadi dance from Wassoulou, her ancestral home in western Mali. She was an energetic and headstrong girl and at the age of twelve her refusal to go to school finally prompted her parents to send her to live and be disciplined by an aunt in Bamako. She was not to see her parents again for over a decade.

Her aunt was an actress, and a few years after arriving, Fatou found herself on a film set looking after her aunt’s infant child, where she was given a one line part in the final scene of the film ‘Taafe Fangan’ (‘The Power of Women’). Things went quickly from then on: she obtained several lead roles in movies and theatre productions, both in Mali as well as in France. This wasn’t without any struggle, since her family wanted her to give up her career and settle down. Nevertheless, Fatou continued to be invited for various roles, so she fled to France to perform around the world with the French theatre company Royal de Luxe.

It is here that her beautiful voice developed and was discovered. Cheikh Tidiane Seck invited her to work on two projects as chorus vocalist; Seya the Grammy nominated album by Mali’s star Oumou Sangaré and Red Earth the Grammy winning Malian project by American jazz singer Dee Dee Bridgewater. When the albums were released Fatou toured worldwide as singer and dancer with both projects.

On her return to France, Fatou took the role of Karaba in the popular touring musical Kirikou and Karaba. Around the same time, she bought herself a guitar, started to teach herself and write down her own compositions. After writing and recording an album’s worth of songs, an introduction from Oumou Sangaré resulted in a record deal with World Circuit and the recording of her debut album. Her debut album Fatou was released in 2011 and ranked #1 in various album charts worldwide.

Fatoumata’s latest ‘London Ko’ was co-produced by Diawara, Daniel Florestano and Damon Albarn
and features a host of guest musicians, including Damon Albarn, Angie Stone, Roberto
Fonseca, M.anifest, Yemi Alade and -M-. Still rewriting the rules, Fatoumata plunges us back into her
eclectic, avant-garde universe. With the different styles and approaches she brings to her music
(afrobeat, jazz, pop, electro and even hip hop), ‘London Ko’ is an album that’s impossible to categorise.

Hailed as one of the most vital standard-bearers of modern African music, Fatoumata Diawara’s music
remains hard to classify: Afropop, Afrofolk, Afrofutursim. Somewhere between tradition and modernity,
guitar in hand, she mixes wassoulou rhythms and West African vocal techniques with contemporary
sounds.

Her Grammy-nominated second album ‘Fenfo’ was released in 2018 to universal critical acclaim. Diawara
has previously worked and toured with some of the biggest names in contemporary music, including
Bobby Womack, Herbie Hancock, Damon Albarn, Sir Paul McCartney, David Crosby, Amadou and
Mariam and many others. She continues to pursue a successful career as an actress, including an
acclaimed appearance in 2014 ́s Timbuktu (Le chagrin des oiseaux), which received both BAFTA and
Academy Award nominations. Fatoumata, who won ‘Best Female Artist’ at 2020’s African Talent Awards,
has also co-starred in Damon Albarn and Abderrahmane Sissako’s theatre project ‘Le Vol du Boli’. Last
year, Fatoumata released ‘Maliba’ a collaboration with the Google Arts & Culture platform. The seven
new songs formed the soundtrack to a special online presentation of the legendary Timbuktu
Manuscripts, which celebrated centuries of Malian culture.

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