An African traditionalist who loves modern sounds and draws from many colourful influences. Fatoumata Diawara is a Malian singer/songwriter and actress. Her debut "Fatou" (2011) and subsequent activities made the artist one of the most important representatives of modern African music. She sang on albums by Dee Dee Bridgewater ("Red Earth"), Oumou Sangar? ("Seya") and Herbie Hancock ("The Imagine Project"). She has also collaborated with Bobby Womack, Mulatu Astatke, Cheikh L?, the Orchestre Poly-Rythmo de Cotonou, Blick Bassy and Rocket Juice & the Moon. Diawara has performed at Glastonbury and other major festivals, performed at Carnegie Hall and boarded Damon Albarn's Africa Express, where she shared a stage with Paul McCartney as the highlight. At the same time she continued her career as an actress, among others in the movies "Timbuktu" (2014) and "Mali Blues" (2015). Her album "Fenfo" was recorded in Mali, Burkina Faso, Paris and Barcelona and produced by Diawara himself and the French superstar Matthieu Chedid alias -M-. "Fenfo" turned into an album without limits in the best sense of the word. The eleven songs combine old African stringed instruments like the Kora and Ngoni with electric guitars and traditional percussion with kit drums. Diawara, who mostly sings on Bambara, is accompanied by -M- (guitar, keyboards) the brilliant cellist Vincent S?gal and the Kora player Sidiki Diabat?.
