Yanna Momina
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Yanna Momina | |
|---|---|
| Born | Yanna Momina Abass[1] 1948 Djibouti |
| Died | 2023 (aged 76) |
| Labels | Glitterbeat Records |
Yanna Momina Abass (1948–2023) was a Djiboutian singer and songwriter. Her only album Afar Ways was released in 2022, and she died shortly before her first planned international performance.
Momina was born in Djibouti in 1948.[2] She was Afar, an ethnic group that live in Eritrea, Ethiopia, and Djibouti.[2] Unusually for an Afar woman, Momina wrote her own songs.[1]
Momina's debut album Afar Ways was recorded in the hut where she lived in 2018, and was produced by Ian Brennan.[3] The album was released on Glitterbeat Records in 2022. Francis Gooding of The Wire called the album "intimate and crisp" and said that the folk pop sound of the guitar-backed tracks "hints at a complex modernist tradition that a single album can only gesture toward."[4]
Momina died in 2023 at the age of 76, one month before a planned appearance at the arts festival WOMAD, which would have been her first performance outside Djibouti.[1]