Malian singer Fatoumata Diawara (aka Fatou) was born of Malian parents in the Ivory Coast 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 made the decision to dedicate herself to her passion, music. Diawara 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. Perpetuating Mali’s rich traditions with a spectacular contemporary sound all her own, Diawara has fought the cultural prejudice faced by women throughout the continent and parental opposition to her artistic ambitions to win success as an actress in film and theater before finding her feet in music, the medium she was always destined to make her own.

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