Fanta Damba

Fanta Damba, born in 1938 in the Malian village of Segou, is also known to her fans as La Grande Vedette Malienne. She was born into a well-known jali family and both of her parents were musicians. She started singing as a child, in fact, at the age of seven she enrolled in a sort of jali school which was supervised by the greatest griots of the region. By sixteen she had already made a name for herself and started recording in her early 20s thanks to the help of Radio Mali. In 1975, Damba was the first jalimusolu to tour Euroupe as a solo artist accompanied by ngoni (a guitar-lute), kora and guitar.