Her voice is the voice of Africa: Who is Fatoumata Diawara?

Born in Mali in 1982, Fatou spent her childhood dancing in her father's band. Refusing to go to school, Fatou is sent to live with her aunt due to an African tradition and grows up without seeing her family for 10 years. Fatou, who shines on the sets while babysitting her aunt's actress baby, gets her first role in the movie "Woman's Power". Attracting attention with her beauty, Fatou breaks new ground in her career in the 1999 film "La genèse", starring actor Sotigui Kouyaté, and after she turns 18, she sets off to Paris to do theater. This whole story, which sounds good, comes to an end when her family wants to marry her off.

Songs for women

Fatou explains live that she quit acting because a single woman in Mali has no more rights than an underage child. But Fatou can't give in to all this and runs away from home and returns to the theater. A song she hums on stage opens a new era for her and Fatou starts performing in different venues in Paris. She is the backing vocalist on the albums of She Oumou Sangaré and Dee Dee Bridgewater. The artist, who became famous in a short time, took part in musicals and asked "Do only men play the guitar?" She takes the guitar with her questioning and with the support of Rokia Traoré, an African female artist. Fauto, who released her self-titled album in 2011, proves her talent in this field. The artist, who released her second album "Fenfo" when the calendars showed 2018, draws attention to social problems and keeps love from her songs. However, her biggest struggle is for women… She supports women with her social responsibility projects as well as encouraging women with her songs.

Important details

Fatoumata Diawara was born in Ivory Coast in 1982. She grew up in the Malian capital of Bamako in the 1990s. She became an independently famous child actress from a young age, starring in Dani Kouyaté's Python's Dream, based on an old legend about a young girl who ran away from her family in 2001.

Real life, on the other hand, followed the fiction in the movie she played and, against the wishes of her family, who wanted her to marry, fled Bamako at the age of 19 to join the French street theater company Royale de Luxe.

Traveling around the world singing with Royal de Luxe became a feature of the company's performances. Encouraged by these positive performances, Fatoumata began singing in clubs and cafes in Paris.