FATOUMATA DIAWARRA
FatOuMata Diawara said Non, merci. Now that defiance fuels fresh and soulful music that challenges all kinds of norms. “i want to say: ‘Sisters, we can do it,’” africa’s brightest new star tells DaviD HutcHeON.
On the run from an arranged marriage in her native Mali, Africa’s newest superstar shreds like Hendrix, blends trad with mod.
It’s an age-old tale, the dreamer who runs away to join the circus. Fatoumata diawara didn’t just run away, though; she escaped, from an arranged marriage in her homeland of mali. and when she got to the circus in France, she kept on moving, eventually becoming the most fêted new african singer in europe. For now, diawara has ended up in Como, northern Italy. on a day off from touring, she meets us in the welcome shade cast by the Corinthian columns of the teatro sociale, where she recently played to launch her second album, Fenfo (Something To Say). wearing a floppy red hat, the lanky 36-year-old walks through the streets with the elegance of the millionaires who come here to escape milan’s furnace (george Clooney is currently the town’s most famous resident). diawara and her husband have an apartment five minutes from the lake. the singer is unsure, however, if she can yet call it home. “my spirit still lives in mali, in the wassoulou region,” she says. “Como is a good place to write songs. It’s just …” she pauses, aware she is about to upset local sensibilities, “… the pasta is too al dente.” Fenfo is one of the best albums of 2018, and one which sets a new standard for contemporary african music. straight talking, thoroughly modern and yet true to the traditions of west africa, it will dismay those who want world music to be unprocessed and “authentic”, while simultaneously calling out wannabes in Bamako and dakar who aspire to be like, in diawara’s words, “Jay-Z and those american guys”. It’s the sort of landmark sound that the generation of musicians before her – Baaba maal and salif Keita, say – have been grasping for since the 1990s but never quite nailed. toumani diabaté, a malian icon and the 70th generation of kora player in his family, ought to be wondering if her arrival renders him obsolete. Instead, he sees her as a great influence on ambitious hip-hop moguls such as his son sidike. “she’s the sound of youth,” he says down the line from mali. “she’s a new voice, and hearing what she does with malian music makes me happy.” “Fatou has a great desire to say important things,” agrees the Cuban jazz pianist roberto Fonseca, who has collaborated with diawara since 2011. “she has a unique way of singing and audiences admire her work for women. she opens her heart to show what she has created within the deepest parts of her soul.” that openness, however, also alienates some of those who you’d imagine would be her biggest supporters. In west africa, most singers obfuscate their messages with allusions; diawara’s semi-autobiographical compositions contain no such disguises. the opening line of Bissa is ripely candid: “they wanted to give me to a man, but I refused, as I didn’t love him.” when she asked a rapper known for criticising authority to perform Boloko (from her debut album, Fatou) with her, he refused, as he feared singing about female genital mutilation would be a career killer.
DIAWARA DOESN’T DRINK WINE or coffee – MOJO is beginning to wonder if she is at all suited to Italian life – so, the standard rock’n’roll interview is out of the question. Instead, we buy 800g of ice cream and some unusually thick-crust pizza, and head for the lake. She feigns embarrassment at the memory of her stint as one of Malian superstar Oumou Sangaré’s backing singers, eight years ago, when she stole every show; then discusses the lack of women – she was one of three on the bill – at a recent festival in Barcelona. “They won’t book singers who do their own thing,” she says. “Why? I want to do something to say: ‘Sisters, we can do it.’ We need more of us.” What she does on stage perhaps best explains Diawara’s singularity. She’ll lay down her guitar and throw herself into a frenzied Wassoulou dance; back on the axe, she’ll shred, lost in a Hendrix-like freakout. Then she’ll return to the microphone: “I’m going to scream now. I’m going to scream for all the women in the world who can’t scream.” She was one of those women herself, not long ago. Born in Ivory Coast but raised in Bamako by an aunt who was a renowned TV and film comedian, Diawara graduated from hanging out on film sets to the lead role in the 2001 African blockbuster Sia, The Dream Of The Python. Worried this was no life for a woman, her family forced her to announce her retirement and made plans to marry her off to a cousin. She was 19. Fate intervened when a French streettheatre company offered her work. Initially, Diawara insisted she was retired, but after her cousin let slip that the two of them were to be married, she packed her bags and fled Bamako as the police – who were told she had been kidnapped – started looking for her. France, unsurprisingly, was a head-turning experience. Diawara admits she was “seriously lost” for a couple of years. “I didn’t anticipate the consequences,” she says. “My family hated me because I had decided to be somebody. I didn’t do anything bad. Then I started to write songs. Singing became my way of communication.” Fellow Malian singer Rokia Traoré advised her to start playing guitar.
By the second half of the noughties she was the star of a successful French musical, Kirikou Et Karaba, getting bookings as a singersongwriter and working with Sangaré, which led to a deal with World Circuit and her solo debut album, Fatou, in 2011. Diawara looks unperturbed when MOJO tells her some in Mali feel she was using her connection to the queen of Wassoulou music to advance her career. “I saw Oumou as my mother. I am not calculating, no,” she protests. “Remember, I was already making my name in France. I still love Oumou, but I don’t know what she thinks of me.” If Oumou Sangaré is miffed at watching her protégée do well, she diplomatically sees a bigger picture. “There’s no competition,” Sangaré claims. “Because of the richness of Wassoulou music, we have our own styles. The young know what Fatou and I, or Rokia, are saying and accept it, they know it’s the truth. Malians should be proud of what our women are doing.”
In 2016, DIaWaRa WaS InvITED TO WORK WITh Toumani, Sidiki Diabaté and the French star ‘-M-’ (aKa Matthieu Chedid) on an album of african-flavoured rock, Lamomali. “We’d jammed together at an africa Express festival in Marseille,” says Chedid. “She has this power and this profound femininity. There was an immediate connection and after that I couldn’t imagine anybody else taking part in the project.” “Toumani wanted to teach his son that you don’t need to give up tradition to play modern music,” Diawara adds, explaining a very Malian dilemma. “Sidiki is influential with young people in Mali. Perhaps I’m the female equivalent.” Perhaps she is: Lamomali was a hit in France and became a dry run for Fenfo, with Chedid on board as producer. “To me it was essential to do an album that reflected actual african music,” he says. “The real work was keeping the roots and bringing a more modern and current sound and colour to the music.” “he brings the electronic stuff, I like organic music,” explains Diawara, pointing out that for every credit acknowledging keyboards and programming, there’s another for instruments such as kamelen ngoni (the “young man’s harp”) and pumpkin (used as percussion). “he understood I wanted to keep some tradition, but he said: ‘Just a little beat … a little bit more.’” The pizza finished, the ice cream melted, Diawara packs up. She has a gig in venice, but before leaving she shares an insight into what life could have been: “I still see the cousin I was to marry. I think he is angry. You don’t run away, you are a woman, you have to stay and make ten babies. I was supposed to be that woman.” She smiles that big smile again, laughing at the thought. The lure of the circus still has her in its grip.
“My faMily hated Me because i decided to be soMebody. then i started to write songs. and i found answers to questions i was asking.” fatoumata diawara