It's Been Seven Years Since Fatoumata Diawara Released Her Wide-Praised
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FATOUMATA DIAWARA Looking back to the future It’s been seven years since Fatoumata Diawara released her wide-praised debut album. Jane Cornwell catches up with the singer as she launches her long-anticipated follow-up PHOTOS AÏ DA MULUNEH or her new album, Fenfo, Mali-raised singer frame – a guitar she sometimes removes to perform the flailing Fatoumata Diawara went back to the past to get didadi dance of her region – she duly caused a sensation. to the future. Literally. Te record’s cover photo – Diawara’s backstory was equally compelling. Born in Ivory which shows the singer and guitarist standing on a Coast to Malian parents, she was a wild child who was sent, vast salt lake, her face painted with pointillist dots, aged 11, to be disciplined by an actress aunt in Bamako; Fher red gown billowing in the wind – was shot in the wilds of spotted on set by a director, she embarked on a film career. At Ethiopia. Te cradle of civilization, the Motherland, as it were, 18 she was in Paris, playing the eponymous anti-heroine in the of the Motherland. Sophoclean tragedy Antigone; back in Mali she blurred art/life Out there on the Afar Triangle, a vast expanse near the boundaries as the lead in Dani Kouyaté’s popular 2002 film, border of Eritrea, the skeleton of one of humanit’s oldest Sia: Te Dream of the Python, a film about a young girl who ancestors, a young female, was found. And it was here that defies convention. Her national profile soared. Diawara filmed the video for the single ‘Nterini’, a bittersweet Invited to join the renowned French street theatre company song about a young man heading of in search of a better life. Royal de Luxe, Diawara went against her parents’ wishes ‘My love has gone far away and may never come back,’ sings and did precisely that. Too bad that she’d been promised in Diawara over hypnotic electro-acoustic backing, her voice as marriage to a cousin, and forced to announce on television crystalline and lovely as it ever was. ‘What am I to do?’ that she was giving up acting for good. Ever the rebel, Diawara Beginning with the stark reminder that one in seven had run away, making it onto a Paris-bound plane in the nick people in the world today are migrants, the video tells the of time, the Bamako police (who’d been told she was being story of this everyman and his dependents between images kidnapped) hot on her heels. of Diawara standing at the prow of a blue wooden boat, On tour around Europe (and in Mexico and Vietnam) holding the pole of an undulating red flag, and dancing she would sing between shows to amuse herself, her voice amid floating sci-fi orbs, Rorschach-stle clifscapes and two prompting double takes. Encouraged, she did gigs in Parisian large transparent moons. We glimpse two Diawaras, both bars and landed a key role in a West Africa-themed musical, wearing the same block-colour gown, the same towering impressing the Malian producer Cheikh Tidiane Seck who Masai headwrap. Ancient and future, hidden and seen… got her singing backing vocals on (subsequently acclaimed) On Fenfo, dualit rules. albums by Dee Dee Bridgewater and Oumou Sangaré, with “Migration can be a beautiful and noble thing,” Diawara, 36, whom she memorably performed live. tells me when we meet in Como, Italy, where she lives with her Ten came Fatou. Now comes Fenfo, (which translates as Italian husband and young son, and where she is premiering ‘Something to Say’). Diawara’s lyrics span topics including Fenfo live. “Tere is so much that is positive about Africa, and bans on inter-ethnic marriage, female genital mutilation I have a lot I want to say about it.” and domestic violence in Mali and beyond, along with Directed by noted Ethiopian visual artist and photographer exhortations to take pride in Mande culture, to stay humble, Aïda Muluneh, the video is a glorious reminder of what we’ve share happiness, show respect. Non-Bamana-speakers might been missing since Diawara burst into view in 2011 with her not understand exactly what she’s singing about but it’s clear debut album, Fatou [reviewed in #63], whose self-penned that this is a recording that ultimately celebrates Africa while Bamana-language songs blended rollicking Wassoulou championing a revolution of attitude. rhythms from southern Mali, her ancestral home, with Fenfo’s release comes at the end of a seven-year cycle. Since elements of folk, jazz and pop. Delivered live by a charming her debut (on World Circuit) Diawara has variously toured 20-something with cowrie-shells and coloured beads in her the world, appeared in films such as Mali Blues and the locks and a mint-green Stratocaster slung across her lithe Grammy-nominated Timbuktu and enjoyed wildly successful 22 SONGLINES › ISSUE 139 FATOUMATA DIAWARA FATOUMATA DIAWARA collaborations with the likes of Damon Albarn’s Africa Express project; the great Cuban pianist Roberto Fonseca (her Montuno label mate); the progressive Moroccan chanteuse Hindi Zahra; and French/West African music project Lamomali, brainchild of iconic French singer and multi-instrumentalist Matthieu Chedid, aka M – Fenfo’s producer. She’s also become a mother. “I have a diferent feeling now,” she says, applying make-up in a brightly-lit dressing room inside the “I want to speak Teatro Sociale, Como’s neo-classical opera house and theatre. Out for the modern the door, beyond the fourth wall, an adoring home crowd of fans including a clutch of West Africans, several of whom will end up generation of dancing onstage, are piling into the gilt-and-velvet auditorium. “I have already introduced myself to the world. I am where I women who are want to be. I want to trust my truth and never change who I fighting to exist” am.” She squares her shoulders. “I want to speak for the modern generation of women who are fighting to exist.” Tat megawatt smile. “I want to take people to Africa, not Africa to people.” It’s an outlook shared with Muluneh, a former Washington Post photojournalist who espouses self-determination for Africa. Muluneh’s Afro-futurist aesthetic helped shaped Diawara’s look in Afar, a geological depression where the deepest point in Africa reaches 155m below sea level, and where a small team – including four armed securit guards – worked during daytime temperatures of up to 48˚C. A wardrobe of sharp colours, geometric patterns, colourful headwraps and a mysterious, glittering veil transformed Diawara into a sci-fi warrior queen worthy of an Octavia Butler novel, complete with Ethiopian-influenced body paint, drawing on inspiration from the decorative traditions of the Dogon people of Mali, whose beliefs in astronomy and the supernatural incorporate visions of a future reconnected with an ancient past. “It was very hot but I didn’t feel pain or get tired or even feel like eating,” says Diawara, who spent four days sleeping outside. “Something was charging me. Te earth. Te ancestors. I had so much energy. I was in my element.” Te songs on Fenfo underscore Diawara’s mix of strength and fragilit – her dualit – while covering the gamut of African stles from blues, funk and rock to syncopated Afro-pop, and featuring instruments including keyboards and electric guitars, kit drums, the kamalengoni harp and African percussion. Tere are ballads, too; the songs ‘Don Do’ and ‘Mama’ (an ode to her parents, with whom she’s long since reconciled) have an intimate, less-is-more vibe, courtesy of just Diawara’s voice and acoustic guitar and Vincent Segal’s expressive cello. Diawara cherry-picked compositions from the ever-growing collection she keeps on her phone, most recorded on the road, on the fly (“I am always coming up with melodies when I’m on a tour bus or listening to the rhythms of a train”). Ten she fleshed them out with lyrics that, for the majorit of Bamana- speakers in Mali, could seem direct, to the point of abrupt: “My tpe of writing is new for many Malians,” says Diawara, who in 2013 gathered a group of more than 40 big name African musicians in Bamako (Oumou Sangaré, Toumani Diabaté, Tiken Jah Fakoly) to record ‘Mali-Ko’, a song demanding peace in insurgent-riven Mali. “In a three-minute song you can say many things,” she continues. “And you know, music has such an important role in the country. It gives strength, spiritualit, guidance; many Malians have lost faith in politics and look to musicians for direction. And music has always brought hope. 24 SONGLINES › ISSUE 139 WWW.SONGLINES.CO.UK WWW.SONGLINES.CO.UK ISSUE 139 › SONGLINES 25 FATOUMATA DIAWARA ".."3.BHISFC6OJUFE 53MPXFOEUIFPSZNFFUTQBO.BHISFC SIZUINT UJNFMFTTWPJDFTGVUVSJTUWJTJPOT “But speech has enormous power in my societ; The pictures Onstage in Como, surrounded by a band on words used thoughtlessly can really hurt. As a of Fatou were keyboard, guitars and drums, her feet bare, hair taken in the result people are very careful about what they Afar Triangle, encased in a swathe of sky-blue cloth, Diawara say. I sufered a lot from this when I was a child,” in the Great made a triumphant return to the solo spotlight. Rift Valley in – a child whose speaking voice would ofen East Africa She began with the ballads, showcasing her voice crack with emotion, so found it easier to sing – and considerable guitar skills (“I bought my latest “because I knew we were born with the freedom electric guitar at a small shop here and I could see 4BNCB5PVSÏ8BOEF to say how we feel.