Home » Fatoumata Diawara tells of an Africa that wants to change – Andrea de Georgio

Fatoumata Diawara tells of an Africa that wants to change – Andrea de Georgio

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July 7, 2021. As the sun slowly begins to set, a flood of people flock to the Corniche Président John Fitzgerald Kennedy in Marseille, a busy promenade that connects the city center to the beaches of Catalans, Malmousque, Maldormé and, further on, Prado. The Théâtre Silvain, a suggestive amphitheater surrounded by greenery that warms up the musical summers of Marseille, tonight hosts the concert of Fatoumata Diawara, one of the most eccentric and interesting voices of the African artistic panorama.

Tickets for the highlight of the Festival de Marseille, which closes the 17th edition of Africa Fête, have been sold out for days. Several thousand people – after presenting a vaccination certificate or a negative molecular test for covid-19 at the entrance – fill the dance floor and the wide steps of the open-air theater to watch the show of the Malian Diva. Some young people, posted on top of the external walls of the structure, are satisfied with the play of light and the echoes of the concert, reflected on the hill behind them.

Back on tour “after a dark year for everyone, especially for artists”, Fatoumata Diawara is taking back the stages and spotlights of the most important music festivals scheduled this summer in various European cities: Barcelona, ​​Paris, London, Zurich, Oslo , Stockholm, Warsaw, Utrecht, Edinburgh, Strasbourg, Bologna, Rome, Sassari. Just to mention the main ones. “Being able to play again in front of so many people is incredible, it’s like relearning how to walk together”. The energy released during his live performances is contagious and embarks the audience on a one-way journey into the multifaceted world of Fatou, a 39-year-old artist who never stops growing, experimenting and sharing, despite an already long career studded with successes.

Actress, dancer, musician, songwriter. Her artistic maturation began early: at the age of eight she was initiated into dance and guitar by her father; in 1996, at the age of 14, he made his first cinematic appearance in the film Taafé Fanga the Malian director Adama Drabo, who tells the revolt of women in a Dogon village; he later acts for the famous Malian director Cheick Oumar Sissoko in the film The genesis, selected at the 1997 Cannes Film Festival.

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Free spirit
“My real luck was starting to travel the world at 19, thanks to the theater,” says Diawara in the backstage of the concert in Marseille. “I’ve learned that it takes love to change things”. Leaving Bamako at a very young age, surviving an arranged marriage and a complicated family situation, her free spirit finds refuge in the prestigious street theater company Royal de Luxe. From Paris, for six years, he went on tour performing in the four corners of the planet, shaping his artistic sense through the different cultures encountered along the way. “I remember being amazed the first time, as a girl, in the United States, I saw an artist sing and, at the same time, play the guitar. In Mali, if you are a woman, you either play or sing. ”

In front of the heterogeneous audience of the Théâtre Silvain, accompanied by a virtuoso quartet (pianola, guitar, bass and drums), Fatoumata Diawara proudly holds her electric guitar, flaming red, which she flaunts over a bright yellow fabric dress wax and a fluttering red veil with which, during some wild dances, she covers her face. The sneakers – also strictly red – for almost two hours do not stop jumping and shooting from one side of the stage to the other. During the show, at the end of each song, to introduce the next one, the clenched fist raised to the sky, reaffirms the strong themes that are also found in the two solo albums released so far (Fatou, of 2011, and Fenfo, “A lot to say” in bambara, from 2018, both released on the important World Circuit label): the women’s question, the fight against female genital mutilation, the harmful effects of climate change, the freedom of movement of all beings humans. On the phenomenon of migration from Africa to Europe Fatoumata Diawara wrote and sang several songs, such as Clandestine (2011), djonya (slavery) e Nterini, the latter mentioned by former US President Barack Obama in his favorite 2018 playlist.

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A special period
Going smoothly from a complex reinterpretation of Sinnerman by Nina Simone to a piece-tribute to Fela Kuti, inspiring soul of Afrobeat, from an old workhorse like Owl to unpublished and experimental songs, on the stage Fatoumata celebrates the greatness of African women who fought through music such as Angélique Kidjo, Miriam Makeba, Oumou Sangaré. “The women are organizing. But we also need the help of you men! ”She says, straining what little voice she has left at the end of the concert. “Something is changing, but I would like to see more young women who feel they are leaders in their sector, not just in the arts”.

The Africa that narrates, and which vibrates strongly in its musical timbre elusive to labels, is experiencing an important transition. “It is a special period, we are reborn and finally good things happen: new sounds, new videos, new expressions, new representations are born. The youth are fighting to change the imaginary of Africa, but the political reality, in Mali and in the Sahel, is chaotic ”.

A small group of Malian fans fixed under the stage waving a large green-yellow-red flag incessantly, shouting “Sia Yattabare” throughout the concert. For the African public, in fact, Fatoumata Diawara is directly linked to the character played in Sia, the python’s dream by the great director Dani Kouyaté. The 2002 film, awarded at various international festivals and becoming a cult throughout West Africa, tells the legend of a young virgin offered as a sacrifice to the god Python who tries to free herself from her sad destiny. When the story of one or more characters sticks to the life of an artist, it becomes difficult to separate the real person from the representation. The European audience, on the other hand, remembers her most for her performance in the film Timbuktu, which won seven César Awards in 2015 (including Best Film and Best Director). The young guitarist stoned by the jihadists in the film by Mauritanian director Abderrahmane Sissako is just another facet of the female anti-heroine who rebels against the oppression suffered by oppressive families or societies. A figure who often returns, in disguise, in the path of Fatoumata Diawara.

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Like the witch Karaba, played in 2008 in [Kirikou e Karaba](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gBjb2ex2uq0&t=8s), theatrical reinterpretation of the famous cartoon by Michel Ocelot, which was a great success and contributed to its popularity, especially in France. This character, at the same time evil and deeply destroyed by a past marked by sexual violence, paints a further face of an artist intimately and globally committed, who has found her form of d most natural expression.

Before the pandemic, in fact, he was commuting between Bamako and Paris, weaving luxury relationships and collaborations. First with the leader of the Gorillaz band, Damon Albarn, with whom in 2012 he signed, together with Flea of ​​the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Tony Allen, historic drummer of Fela Kuti, the album-project _Rocket Juice & the Moon __._ Semper thanks to the collective _Africa Express, _ founded by Damon Albarn, Fatoumata Diawara gets to play with many great names in contemporary music, including Paul McCartney, Bobby Womack, Herbie Hancock, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Roberto Fonseca and Matthieu Chedid. It also comes Sorry, featuring coi Gorillaz.

“What I love about music is that when we jump, we are all the same,” concludes the Malian artist, exhausted by the selfies and the affection of her Marseille supporters. The next morning, at 5.30, a taxi will take her to take yet another plane that will take her a few days home to her two children and her husband on Lake Como. Before resuming the fire tour that will stop, on July 27, in Rome, in the splendid setting of Villa Ada “to make the Roman public dance too”. Word of the Diva of Bamako.

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