An Evening in Mali feat. Fatoumata Diawara and Amadou & Mariam - Friday 12 July @ London's Somerset House
AN EVENING IN MALI
FEATURING FATOUMATA DIAWARA AND AMADOU & MARIAM
FRIDAY 12 JULY - SOMERSET HOUSE - LONDON
An unmissable celebration of the brightest and boldest Malian music, featuring rising star Fatoumata Diawara and the legendary duo Amadou & Mariam.
Fatoumata Diawara
Hailed as one of the most vital standard-bearers of modern African music, Fatoumata Diawara's music remains hard to classify: Afropop, Afrofolk, Afrofutursim. Somewhere between tradition and modernity, guitar in hand, she mixes wassoulou rhythms and West African vocal techniques with contemporary sounds. Her Grammy-nominated second album ‘Fenfo’ was released in 2018 to universal critical acclaim. Diawara has previously worked and toured with some of the biggest names in contemporary music, including Bobby Womack, Herbie Hancock, Damon Albarn, Sir Paul McCartney, David Crosby, Amadou and Mariam and many others. She continues to pursue a successful career as an actress, including an acclaimed appearance in 2014´s Timbuktu (Le chagrin des oiseaux), which received both BAFTA and Academy Award nominations. Fatoumata, who won ‘Best Female Artist’ at 2020's African Talent Awards, has also co-starred in Damon Albarn and Abderrahmane Sissako’s theatre project ‘Le Vol du Boli’. Last year, Fatoumata released ‘Maliba’ a collaboration with the Google Arts & Culture platform. The seven new songs formed the soundtrack to a special online presentation of the legendary Timbuktu Manuscripts, which celebrated centuries of Malian culture.
Fatoumata's latest ‘London Ko’ was co-produced by Diawara, Daniel Florestano and Damon Albarn and features a host of guest musicians, including Damon Albarn, Angie Stone, Roberto Fonseca, M.anifest, Yemi Alade and -M-. Still rewriting the rules, Fatoumata plunges us back into her eclectic, avant-garde universe. With the different styles and approaches she brings to her music (afrobeat, jazz, pop, electro and even hip hop), ‘London Ko’ is an album that’s impossible to categorize.
WATCH 'NSERA' (FEAT. DAMON ALBARN) VIDEO HERE
