In the glitzy world of music where singers hope to walk in the hall of fame as a big star, Fatoumata Diawara is an exception. The soft spoken artiste isn’t interested in fame or boasting about her achievements. “I am a woman and music is my soul,” she says on her first trip to Hyderabad. Her concern is only with her music projects and raising the spirit of women through music. “It’s possible for women in music to be free and independent. If we lie, we lie to ourselves. There is a lot to do on this planet. We need to save our place to be respected.”
Born to Malian parents in the Ivory Coast in 1982, little Fatou was a member of her father’s dance troupe. She was packed off to her actress aunt in Bamako when as a 12-year-old she refused to go to school. Thanks to that aunt, Fatou found herself on a film set, babysitting her aunt’s infant child. One thing let to another and Fatou bagged the lead role in director Cheick Omar Sissoko’s movie La Genese (Genesis).
Movies came buzzing by as she returned to Mali. 2002 was a distinctive year when she dared to run away to Paris after her parents refused to permit her to act in a movie. When she took to singing backstage during rehearsals, a new songstress was born and she found her calling in music.
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“I never look back,” she says with a smile. “If you look back, you stop fighting. I have been fighting since I was born. I feel, it has become a part of my soul and part of my own person.” Singing about hope, empowerment and freedom of the spirit became a distinctive part of her songs. She says it is not easy to be a woman in Africa. “One has to be very tough. The woman is fighting for her place. I don’t want that situation for my children. That’s why I never look back at the past. I look to the future to create a space for children in the world. Yesterday is gone and I don’t know what will happen tomorrow. I am at the present,” she says.
Fatou says she relaxes with music. “Audience is my family and I want to make people happy listening to the songs,” she points out and adds, “I relax sometimes but it is difficult as I have to decide on so many things; writing new songs and there are many projects to look out.”
Fatou likes Indian music especially of Pandit Ravi Shankar, Anoushka Shankar and Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan. “I am more sensitive to the old traditional instruments. They still have the true music. What I am looking for is simple and soothing music. Music is not of us. We are soldiers of music,” she states.
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On a parting note, she enthuses about the energy she was engulfed in Hyderabad. “I went to a popular market here,” she says trying to recall its name. “I have bought a lot of souvenirs here. Hyderabad is special. It is so much like Africa, like Nigeria or Ghana. The movement of the energy is amazing. The energy is so powerful and you feel things are going up. It is the future and you feel that up.”
( Fatoumata Diawara was in Hyderabad to perform at the Blackberry Sharp Nights at Durgam Cheruvu)