Malian singer Fatoumata Diawara (aka Fatou) was born in the Ivory Coast in 1982 then raised in Mali. 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.
She made the decision to dedicate herself to her passion, music. She worked to complete an album’s worth of songs and started recording demos for which she composed and arranged all the titles, as well as playing guitar, percussion, bass and singing lead and harmony vocals. An introduction from Oumou Sangaré resulted in a record deal with World Circuit and the recording of her debut album.
Between recording sessions she found time to collaborate on Damon Albarn’s Africa Express and contribute vocals to albums by Cheikh Lô, AfroCubism, Herbie Hancock’s GRAMMY winning Imagine Project and Orchestra Poly-Rythmo de Cotonou.
Fatou’s EP ‘Kanou’ was released on 9 May, 2011 followed by her debut album ‘Fatou’ on 19 September, 2011 (29 September in France).
Introducing a fresh new talent with a unique sound, a bagful of beautiful self-penned songs and a tumultuous life story behind her, Fatoumata Diawara’s debut album, ‘Fatou’, was released on World Circuit on September 19, 2011.
Tall, superbly poised and elegant, with an iridescent smile, this sometime star of African film draws elements of jazz and funk into an exquisitely sparse contemporary folk sound – refracting the rocking rhythms and plaintive melodies of her ancestral Wassoulou tradition through an instinctive pop sensibility. At the centre of the music is Fatou’s warm, affecting voice, spare, rhythmical guitar playing and gorgeously melodic songs that draw powerfully on her own often troubled experience. Damon Albarn, Toumani Diabaté, Herbie Hancock and Led Zeppelin’s John Paul Jones are just a few of the major players who have fallen for Fatou’s effortless musical charm, as her presence has lit up shows by Africa Express, AfroCubism and Hancock’s ‘Imagine’ project. Yet her debut is almost entirely her own work: self-composed and arranged, with her own backing vocals and percussion. It breathes with the natural warmth, confidence and spontaneity that are the essence of Fatou.
Her new video for Clandestin was released today.
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