Fatoumata Diawara: “We have created something, a fusion, a music that I would say is totally new”

“I am Fatoumata Diawara, I was born to express something and the world must know my musical identity.” Powerful stuff. Now in her 40s and a mother of two, it’s been five years since the Malian songstress released Fenfo (Something to Say), and she has been keeping herself very busy since: starring alongside Omar Sy in French film Yao in 2019; featuring on the singles ‘Désolé’ by Gorillaz and ‘Douha (Mali Mali)’ by Disclosure in 2020; and releasing the seven-track EP Maliba in 2022. Even a worldwide pandemic hasn’t managed to slow her down. This year she returns with her third studio album, London Ko, a tour de force produced by herself along with Daniel Florestano and Damon Albarn.

The project was born with the opening track, ‘Nsera’, a celebratory number featuring Albarn’s vocals and synths, later accompanied by a stunning video from director Grégory Ohrel. “We were so happy with the result, we were like, ‘This kind of music has never been made before.’ It’s true that there are collaborations between Mali and contemporary music… But here, we have created something, a fusion, a music that I would say is totally new. And so we said, ‘this is it, London Bamako. That’s it, a connection: London Bamako, London Ko.’”

Fatoumata Diawara in Le Vol du Boli at Théâtre du Châtelet (photo: Cyril Moreau)

The inspiration for the album came during Diawara’s involvement in Le Vol du Boli, a theatre project she worked on with Albarn and director Abderrahmane Sissako in Paris last year. “The writing of that opera was so fluent. We have a real connection when we start playing… So we decided to work on the London Ko album together.”

Fatou is no stranger to the theatre, and in much of the Francophone world she was known for her acting long before she picked up her guitar and began to sing. It was her director in Royal de Luxe (a French street theatre company) who first pushed her voice into the limelight. “[He] heard me singing and said: ‘you have to sing in the play. You are not only an actress. When you’re singing to yourself, we all hear you and everyone stops to listen.’” So, for every show from thereon out, Fatoumata sang during the interlude, and this, she tells me, is when her musical career really began to take form. “All the people who came up to me after the shows, they didn’t want to talk to me about my acting,” she laughs. “The director was French, but he told me, ‘No, you sing in your language as you have always done for yourself. We want you to bring your intimacy to us, to share it with us.’”

Today, she speaks both English and French, but continues to sing (almost) exclusively in her mother tongue, Bambara. After all, it has never been a barrier to her international audience, quite the contrary in fact. The connection she’s developed with most of her listeners, she tells me, is based first and foremost on the melodies in her music – and although she doesn’t say so, I’d be willing to bet that her unique voice might have a little something to do with it too. In any case, the message is secondary. “Because if they understood, imagine, all my songs in English, I would come across as too militant. And that’s not what I want, I don’t want my lyrics to dominate the spiritual energy on stage… I want to make them feel good, I want to heal them first. The text comes after.”

Fatoumata Diawara with Thierno Thioune in Le Vol du Boli at Théâtre du Châtelet (photo: Cyril Moreau)

That being said, she is not one to shy away from controversial issues. Having already confronted the subject of female genital mutilation on her debut back in 2011, she deliberately left it off her second album, Fenfo. “I took a break, because you have to go slowly with a society like Mali’s.” On London Ko she puts the subject back on the table with ‘Sete’ (Powerless). “[Female] excision is a subject that is close to my heart, because in Mali it’s still very taboo,” she explains. It’s a harmful, traumatic practice, and one which nearly cost her her life. On this track, she is accompanied by the Brooklyn Youth Chorus, their heavenly voices resolute and unwavering. “I absolutely had to talk about it again because it’s a practice that’s still going on. As long as it doesn’t stop, I’ll sing about it in different forms. I can do it in jazz, in blues, in Wassoulou, in Mandingo, I don’t give a damn. But I’ll find a way, a melody that fits and a way to ask the right questions, until one day something clicks for all the people who follow me in Mali… That someday they’ll say to themselves ‘In fact, she’s right. Maybe it’s not necessary.’”

Fatoumata is a strong believer in music having the power to affect change; if you want more evidence, look no further than Voices United for Mali – the Malian supergroup made up of almost 40 musicians which she assembled in 2013 to record ‘Mali-ko’ (Peace), to speak out against the war in her homeland. But when I ask her who she writes her music for, the target audience is a little closer to home. “My initial reason for making music is really for myself. Because when I sing, it does something good for my soul. It allows me to sing about the problems, the things I don’t understand in life… the things that are close to my heart – which may sometimes be my pain, but I give it light.”

It’s a catharsis, a dialogue with herself. “I have a relationship with music that is very bluesy. It’s like I’m asking myself these questions, and asking God ‘Why is it like this?’” But once she began singing for an audience, she realised that her voice was not something to keep to herself. “Eventually their words struck a chord with me,” she says, remembering people’s reactions to her singing. “I thought OK, there’s something to be done with this voice’… I don’t think it belongs to me, I have to share it.”

Fatoumata Diawara

And she has continued to do just that. Last year, she teamed up with international organisation Timbuktu Renaissance, in collaboration with Google Arts & Culture, to become the voice of the cultural preservation project digitising the Timbuktu manuscripts and celebrating centuries of Malian heritage. “I always wanted to be connected with my tradition and my culture,” she says. “I just love where I come from, my roots, my origins, my ancestors.”

One of the most sought-after voices to come out of West Africa, she’s been in high demand over the past few years. Having featured on an extensive list of projects with artists from every musical genre imaginable, from Herbie Hancock and Gorillaz to Mulatu Astatke and Disclosure, her voice brings an irresistible je ne sais quoi to every song she sings on.

But despite Fatoumata’s track record for collaboration, her composition process is a firmly solitary one. “When I make my demos, when the songs are born, I never go into the studio with my band,” she explains. “Even when we’re on tour, I go alone. They always ask me if I need the bass and so on, and I have to say no. I want the songs to be strong on their own, with only my guitar and voice.” This makes sense. After all, her first album, Fatou, was essentially just that – her voice, the guitar, and not much else. Her voice is the magic ingredient, there’s no denying it; but learning the guitar, she tells me, has played almost as important a role in her musical journey. “I used to have to constantly beg people to come to the studio with me, to help me score two notes that I had in my head, but that I couldn’t compose,” she explains. The lack of an instrument left her utterly dependent on other musicians, and for someone like Fatoumata, who clearly marches to the beat of her own drum, well, you can imagine the frustration. But it wasn’t just the logistics of recording that posed a problem; harder still was the feeling that she couldn’t express her own musical identity. “I have a clear idea of what I want to do with my music,” she tells me. “So, when I started meeting musicians in Paris to try and explain my musical vision to them, it didn’t go well. It was a lot of pain, a lot of frustration and a lot of wasted energy.”

“I was compared to so many artists. And I said ‘No, wait, give me time, I’m getting there. I’m not finished. Don’t say I’m Tracy Chapman or Sade [Adu] or Oumou Sangaré or Rokia [Traoré].’ It was a very difficult moment for me,” she recalls. “I remind you of these women, that’s great, but I am me. I have my own story to tell this world.”

When it comes to her own albums (save for one song with Toumani Diabaté on Fatou), she has always worked alone. But now, armed with her ever-improving guitar skills (“Now, I even do solos!” she exclaims) and the musical freedom that comes with them, she’s turned the tables on London Ko. “Once a song works with just guitar and vocals, it can work with an orchestra, it can work with a billion people.” And she’s been exploring just that. With a hefty list of featured artists (Damon Albarn, Angie Stone, -M-, M.anifest, Roberto Fonseca, Yemi Alade), London Ko is “an album of reconciliation and getting back to good people.” Marrying tradition with modernity, Fatoumata takes stock of all her past collaborations and musical experiences. “I felt like I was finally ready to call on my brothers, to say, ‘Now I’m answering. It’s time for me to invite you to come into my world. I want to return your generosity’.”

This interview originally appeared in the July 2023 issue of Songlines. 

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Fatoumata Diawara will perform at Big Ears Festival in Knoxville, TN, US (March 21-24, 2024)