Somerset House Summer Series with American Express is thrilled to announce details of the final headline show at this year’s highly anticipated festival. ‘An Evening In Mali’, featuring Fatoumata Diawara and the duo, Amadou & Mariam will be an unmissable celebration of the brightest and boldest Malian music.
Fatoumata Diawara?continues to innovate on each successive project, rewriting the rules and rewiring traditional African musical forms and rhythms with unexpected colours from Afrobeat, jazz, pop, electro and even hip hop. Her music strikes a perfect balance between synthetic sounds and traditional Malian rhythms, underpinned with cut glass lyrics. The playful mixture of genres can be understood as a means of emancipation which cuts across geographical spaces, as we see in the title of her latest album,?London Ko. Her collaboration with?Damon Albarn gives rise to a new world fusion connecting the Malian capital of Bamako and London, presenting imaginary new worlds that are boldly illustrated by the opening single?Nsera, and the explosive video by Grammy Award-winning director, Gregory Ohrel. This is an artist who can conjure up a vivid relationship with Africa, dismantling the unconscious collective stereotypes and myths of the continent and its diaspora.?
One of?Africa’s most successful and popular musical pairings, Amadou & Mariam’s story is one?of the most inspiring tales in the music world; a love affair that propelled?two veterans of Mali’s music industry,?who first recorded together in the?1970s, into the charts and around the globe.? Amadou & Mariam have steadily become one of Africa’s hottest musical exports, becoming regulars at Albarn’s Africa Express events, collaborating with the likes of Johnny Marr, Flea from the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Amadou’s musical hero, David Gilmour of Pink Floyd, enlisted him as second guitarist for a London date. The duo has appeared on the Main Stage at Glastonbury, criss-crossed America, supported Blur at Hyde Park, toured with Coldplay and U2 and performed at a Nobel Peace Prize concert in honour of Barack Obama. Amadou & Mariam are set to release their new single’ Mogolu’, composed by Manu Chao and produced by Pierre Juarez (M, Sidiki Diabaté, Toumami, Fatoumata Diawara), in the spring.
This show joins the previously announced line up, marking Somerset House Summer Series with American Express as the ultimate, essential live music festival in the capital.?This year’s programme celebrates another trailblazing line-up, with R&B rising star?Pip Millett?opening the series on Thursday 11th July followed by performances from DBN Gogo, Corinne Bailey Rae, Smino, The Amazons, Hania Rani, The Big Moon, Cory Henry, Hak Baker and the Patti Smith Quartet closing proceedings on Sunday 21st July.
One of summer’s most critically acclaimed live music festivals, since its inception in 2003, Somerset House Summer Series with American Express has become a hallmark event for music lovers, serving as a launch pad for emerging acts and spotlighting some of the most influential iconic performers today.? Global artists across a diverse array of genres come to play in the revered live music space with an intimate yet vibrant festival atmosphere in the heart of London.??
