Beating hearts

Africa is known for its bold, unapologetic use of colour. Stories are told in pigments, tones and hues; a kaleidoscope as diverse as the cultures and peoples of the continent. For the initiative Colours of Africa, a collaborative project with Google Arts & Culture, we asked 60 African creatives to capture the unique spirit of their country in a colour which represents home to them.

The projects they have created are personal and distinct stories of Africa, put into images, videos, texts and illustrations. Each artist has also attempted to articulate what being African means to their identity and view of the world.

Colour:Red
Country:Mali

Artwork rationale:

I have chosen the colour red to represent my country, Mali.
Red symbolises energy, love, the earth and all of life. All those associations make me think of my homeland, because it was there that I first discovered their meaning.

Love is the most important feeling in the whole world. Love is what makes us human, makes us family, makes us happy. When you say red, you say yes to life.
There are two things that remind us that we are all equal in this world. One is the heartbeat (also represented by red colour). Life starts with a heartbeat. The other is the blood in our veins.

I read once that we are all different expressions of the same colour and I love to think that nobody is really that different from each other. No matter their roots and origins, skin colour or religion, at the end of the day we all have the same colour running through our veins, and this is red.

What it means to be African

I am very proud of being African, I owe all that I am to my African heritage and roots.

I am very proud of the young African generation too, who is battling to move forward step by step with huge courage and strength.

We Africans are talented and gifted: we are known to rejoice even under challenging and unfavourable conditions.
Being African is a strong feeling of beauty.

Biography

Malian actress and singer Fatoumata Diawara is one of the standard-bearers of modern African music. Her 2011 debut album Fatou brought the Malian singer and guitarist to the global stage and her most recent album, Fenfo (which translates as 'Something to Say') was released in 2018 and to great international acclaim.
Diawara has worked with some of the biggest names in the contemporary music industry. She has recorded with Bobby Womack and Herbie Hancock; played Glastonbury and other major festivals; and toured with the Cuban pianist Roberto Fonseca. She assembled a West African super-group featuring Amadou and Mariam, Oumou Sangaré and Toumani Diabaté to record a song calling for peace in her troubled homeland and climbed aboard Damon Albarn’s star-studded Africa Express, which culminated in her sharing a stage with Sir Paul McCartney. She was also featured in Disclosure’s song Douha (Mali Mali).

She has also continued her parallel career as an actor, including an acclaimed appearance in 2014’s Timbuktu (Le chagrin des oiseaux) directed by Abderrahmane Sissako, which received both BAFTA and Academy Award nominations.

More recently she shared the stage at New York’s legendary Carnegie Hall with the likes of David Crosby and Snarky Puppy in an evening of topical protest songs. She has also worked courageously as a social activist, campaigning against the trafficking and sale of black migrants in Libyan slave markets.
Diawara received two nominations at the 61st Annual Grammy Awards in 2019; one for Best World Music Album for her album 'Fenfo' and Best Dance Recording for 'Ultimatum' in which she was featured with the English band Disclosure.