Fatoumata Diawara

Her spectacular 2011 debut album Fatou made the Malian singer and guitarist the most talked about new African artist on the planet.

Those she has worked with include some of the biggest names in contemporary music. She recorded with Bobby Womack and Herbie Hancock; played Glastonbury and other major festivals; and toured with the Cuban pianist Roberto Fonseca.

She assembled a West African super-group featuring Amadou and Mariam, Oumou Sangaré and Toumani Diabaté to record a song calling for peace in her troubled homeland; and climbed aboard Damon Albarn’s star-studded Africa Express, which culminated in her sharing a stage with Sir Paul McCartney.

Now Fatoumata is back with a brand new single Nsera - Destination ft. Damon Albarn just out that is sung in Bambara, Mali's official language.

“I took a trip back to my homeland Mali in Africa, and was welcomed with cries of joy.”

She may be one of the most outstanding voices in world music, but Fatoumata Diawara remains unclassifiable: Afropop, Afrofolk, Afrofuturism… Somewhere between tradition and modernity, guitar in hand, she brings wassoulou rhythms and West African vocal techniques to meet contemporary sounds. A singer, composer, musician and actor, as one of Africa’s leading female voices, she never ceases to surprise.