Fatoumata diawara rokia traore biography
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Fatoumata Diawara
Malian singer Fatoumata Diawara (aka Fatou) was born in the Ivory Coast in 1982 then raised in Mali. As a child she became a member of her father’s dance troupe and was a popular performer of the wildly flailing didadi dance from Wassoulou, her ancestral home in western Mali. She was an energetic and headstrong girl and at the age of twelve her refusal to go to school finally prompted her parents to send her to live and be disciplined by an aunt in Bamako. She was not to see her parents again for over a decade.
Her aunt was an actress, and a few years after arriving, Fatou found herself on a film set looking after her aunt’s infant child. The film’s director was captivated by Fatou’s adolescent beauty and she was given a one line part in the final scene of the film ‘Taafe Fangan’ (‘The Power of Women’). This led to her being given a lead role by the celebrated director Cheick Omar Sissoko in his 1999 film ‘La Genèse’ (Genesis).
At the age of eighteen Fatou travelled to Paris to perform the classical Greek role of Antigone on stage. After touring with the production she returned to Mali where she was given the lead in Dani Kouyaté’s popular 2001 film ‘Sia, The Dream of the Python’
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Participations
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Rokia Traoré (born 24th January 1974) is an award-winning Malian singer, songwriter, and guitarist.
Traoré was born in Kolokani, Mali as a member of the Bambara ethnic group. As her father was a diplomat, she travelled widely in her youth travelling to Algeria, Saudi Arabia, France and Belgium. As a result of this travel, she was exposed to a wide variety of influences.
The Bambara also had a tradition of griot performing at weddings although members of the nobility such as Traoré are discouraged from performing as musicians. Traoré attended lycée in Mali when her father was stationed in Brussels and started performing publicly. As well as guitar she plays ngoni (lute) and balafon.
In 1997 she linked with Mali musician Ali Farka Touré which raised her profile. She won a Radio France Internationale prize as African discovery of 1997, an honor previously won by Mali's Habib Koité in 1993.
Her first album Mouneïssa (Label Bleu), released in late 1997 in Mali and 1998 in Europe, was acclaimed for its fresh treatment and unqualifiable combinations of several Malian music traditions such as her use of the ngoni and the balafon. It sold over 40,000 copies in Europe.
In 2000, her second album Wanita was released. Traoré wrote and arranged the whole album. The album was wid