FATOUMATA DIAWARA
“In Mali, I’m used to seeing people with nothing. But when they plug their instrument in, they will give you the blues”
“Blues is the base of everything,” begins Fatoumata Diawara. “Blues is the heartbeat. It comes from your soul. And from this soul and from this one heartbeat, you can do anything – any type of music.”
A prolific collaborator, the Grammy Award nominee has indeed cast her creative net far and wide while featuring on numerous studio recordings alongside the likes of Flea, Herbie Hancock and Bobby Womack, and sharing the stage with such luminaries as Paul McCartney, John Paul Jones and Damon Albarn.
“When I started to play guitar, it resolved everything,” she tells us prior to her Bristol show. “It was like healing my soul. Being able to express myself through the guitar was more important than I could have imagined. It totally changed my life. There were no more questions about who I was supposed to be.”
How did the Malian music scene shape you as a musician?
“I grew up in Mali and, naturally, I grew up with traditional music. Malian music is diverse –
