16 December, 2009

R.I.P. Ramata Diakité



Only a few days ago I discovered that Malian singer Ramata Diakité (35) has died in the night of 30 October. Much too young to die, she just got married in September to a Burkinabe businessman, it was her third marriage. She has been burried in Burkina Faso.


Ramata was one of the more successful female singers from the Wassoulou region, just second to Oumou Sangaré. She sold in excess of 100,000 legal cassettes in her home country. Her biggest hit album was « Na », an album that was released worldwide in 1999.




She succeeded in combining the Wassoulou music with modern influences and the album still stands as a classic of Malian music, especially for this mix of the old and the new. Another hightlight was her contribution to the album « Kulanjan ». by Toumani Diabaté & Taj Mahal.
Here's one of her more recent songs, « Sigui » :


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