Sister Fa
Senegalese singer and activist
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Sister Fa (real name Fatou Diatta, born 1982 in Dakar, Senegal)[1] is a Senegalese rapper and anti-female genital mutilation (FGM) activist.
Career
Diatta began her career as a rapper in 2000, when she made her first demo tape.[2] The following year, she performed at the Senegal Hip Hop Awards.[3] In 2005, she released her first album, Hip Hop Yaw Law Fal.[3] In 2008, she toured Senegal to raise awareness of the problem of FGM.[3] In 2009, she released her international debut album Sarabah: Tales From the Flipside of Paradise.[2] In 2011, Sarabah, a documentary about Diatta's tour Education Sans Excision (French for Education without Cutting), premiered at the human rights festival Movies That Matter.[1][4]
Critical reception
Sarabah: Tales From the Flipside of Paradise received a lukewarm review from Jon Lusk of the BBC, who wrote that "too much of the album consists of fairly pedestrian or annoyingly sing-songy melodies that echo playground chants (like Poum Poum Pa) or seem transparently aimed at the ring tone market."[5] In The Daily Telegraph, Mark Hudson gave the album 3 out of 5 stars and wrote that Diatta "pits her gutsy verbalising against exquisite traditional melodies on this well-crafted debut."[6] Rick Anderson reviewed the album for Allmusic, concluding that "It's rare that a hip-hop artist balances lightness, seriousness, funk, and message as successfully as this one does -- especially the first time out."[7]
Personal life
Diatta was subjected to FGM when she was a child.[3] She met Lucas May, an Austrian ethologist, in 2005; they married within a week.[3] In March 2006, she and her husband moved to Berlin.[2]