The opening weekend of the EFG London Jazz Festival, and Malian diva Fatoumata Diawara was at the Royal Festival Hall, firing off electric guitar riffs and singing in her native Bambara about lost childhoods, women’s rights and precious manuscripts from Timbuktu. Majestic in a high-rise head wrap and white robe with brocade vestments, she began with elegant slow-burning tunes from her current third album Maliba, building tension until she was dancing, pogoing and, wrap unravelled, flailing her long braids about. “Get down London!” she commanded, blowing a whistle hanging around her neck, and we did.
The Grammy-nominated singer, songwriter, guitarist, actress and activist has long embraced modernity as well as tradition, splicing an edgy rock aesthetic into the pentatonic melodies and sensuous, raspy tones of Bambara music. Hugely charismatic, Diawara has played major festivals including Glastonbury, worked with the likes of Gorillaz, Herbie Hancock and Cuban jazz pianist Roberto Fonseca and formed a super group of Malian artists to record a song calling for peace in her troubled West African homeland.
