Fatoumata Diawara

Of Malian descent, she spent her early childhood in Ivory Coast, where she was born in 1982. She began her career as an actress at a very young age and decided to move to France at eighteen in search of greater professional opportunities. Although interested in pursuing a music career, she initially studied guitar and wrote songs on her own without releasing them. In 2011 she released an EP, "Kanou", followed a few months later by her debut album "Fatou", for which she composed every track. It was immediately well received by critics, and she was booked at various festivals across Europe and America. During this period she had the chance to work with several internationally renowned artists. In 2014 she released a live album, "At Home - Live In Marciac", to celebrate her collaboration with pianist Roberto Fonseca. With many of the artists she met in this early phase of her career, she built professional relationships destined to last over time. One example above all is Damon Albarn, with whom she began working in 2012 in the supergroup Rocket Juice & The Moon, and with whom she would collaborate for over a decade, both on projects led by the English artist (Gorillaz) and on his subsequent solo albums.

In 2018 she released "Fenfo", which earned her a Grammy nomination for Best World Music Album. She later released an EP, "Maliba", which collects the music she composed as the soundtrack for the Google-funded portal created to provide digital access to the ancient manuscripts held in the archives of the Bamako library.

In 2023 she released her new work, "London KO".