Singer Fatoumata Kouyaté, known as Tata Bambo Kouyaté, died on Monday 14 June at the age of 71. She was her nickname “Bambo” due to her most famous song, composed in the 1960s, when she was barely a teenager.
Fatoumata Kouyaté was only 12 years old, in 1962, when she composed “Bambo”. A marked title, in which she condemns forced marriage. Daughter of Djéliba Kouyaté, a famous n’goni player, she already sings at weddings and baptisms, but this song will serve as a launch pad. It integrates instrumental du Mali.
In 1978, now nicknamed Tata Bambo Kouyaté, she embarked on a solo career that took her to the four corners of the world. A few years later, she recorded a first cassette, then a first international album, Djely Mousso 1988, on Syllart Productions.
At the time, Tata Bambo was one of the first sour cherries to sing with her voice amplified by a microphone, along with her husband, Mobibo, on the electric guitar. “The microphone changed the way I sang,” she told the BBC in 1989, who came to film her singing and dancing in the audience. Before, the sour cherry remained on the ground. “
Tata Bambo Kouyaté dusted off female singers from Mali and opened the way for the youngest and inspired many singers who Kandia Kouyate or Naïny Diabaté.
“Mali has just lost one of its most beautiful voices”
Mory Touré, initiator of Radio Africa and correspondent for Radio Africa in Mali, remembers a play that will have revolutionized the independence of Malian music. “Tata Bambo came up with something special in his voice, something special in his way of doing things,” he says. And Tata Bambo, some would say it was a show woman. She had sent something new, because we must not forget that Mandingo music, griots music, it was praise, there were many things. “
“Beyond that,” Mory Touré said again, “she sent the dance and she sent the show, that was when she went out, she harassed the audience beyond singing, praise. It’s a little this special way that had given Tata Bambo another praise than its vocal flights.This is what we will remember.Tata Bambo is still one of the last of the Mohicans, of the great Morello cherries, not to mention the great voices from the Mandingo music that we have lost. “It is said that after independence, it was the first great singers who had completely built up music lovers. Mali has just lost one of its most beautiful voices.”
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