Fatoumata Diawara on Tour
You can't go wrong with Fatoumata Diawara. This vastly talented singer-songwriter from Mali is a beloved actress as well, and she uses her expressive skills in each musical performance, weaving a spell that's hard to shake even after she's left the stage. Diawara has performed and recorded with a veritable who's who of global artists, including everyone from Damon Albarn (on the Africa Express Tour in 2012) to Paul McCartney, The Roots, and Omara Portuondo.
She's a true talent. Not only did she compose and arrange all the songs on her first album, she also played guitar, percussion, and bass — while singing both lead and harmony vocals. But it's her modern take on Malian music that has enraptured audiences — you can both cuddle and dance to this music. In 2018, while on the Fenfo tour, she received a Grammy nomination for her collaboration on the song "Ultimatum" with the electronic duo Disclosure.
Fatoumata Diawara Background
One of 11 children, Fatoumata Diawara was born in the Ivory Coast to Malian parents. Though her family's heritage is Wassoulou, Diawara grew up speaking Bambara, the primary language in which she sings. A talented and headstrong child, she was sent to live with an aunt in Bamako, Mali, before adolescence.
The move proved fortuitous: Her aunt was an actress, and soon Diawara was landing acting roles, too. She's most famous for playing Sia (a character from West African legends) in the hugely popular 2001 film Sia, le ręve du python. But when her family pushed her to announce she was quitting acting to settle down, she ran away to Paris and joined an acting troupe there.
Despite her success as an actress (she continues to take film roles to this day), her true passion for music emerged. Inspired by her friend and fellow musician Rokia Traoré, Diawara began playing guitar, and it wasn't long before she was singing backup for fellow countrywoman Oumou Sangaré and the jazz great Dee Dee Bridgewater.
Diawara's 2011 debut album Fatou set the world music community on fire. The warm, honeyed music felt like an embrace, even as her Bambara-language lyrics tackled tricky social issues. In 2018, Fenfo earned her a Grammy nomination for Best World Music Album.