In her native Mauritania , Dimi Mint Abba is what you might call super-famous. She is the country's best-loved female griot . It's hard for us in the west to fully appreciate all the complexities and ramifications of that word 'griot'. It means more than just musician or folk singer and encompasses the intertwined roles of historian, storyteller, biographer, political and social commentator, poet, eulogiser, soothsayer, truth-sayer, court jester and walking library. In Mauritania griots are known as iggawin , and Dimi was born into an iggawin familly in 1958.
Her father composed the Mauritanian national anthem and Dimi was taught how to play the ardin , a local relative of the West African kora, as well as the tidnit or lute by her mother. Dimi made her first breakthrough by winning the Oum Khalthoum singing competition in Tunis in 1977, with a song called 'Sawt Elfan' which extols the virtues of the artist over that of the fighter. In 1990, Dimi, in collaboration with her husband and guitarist Khalifa Ould Eide, released the album 'Moorish Music from Mauritania ' on World Circuit. It put the haunting and enthralling sound of the West African Moors on the international map.
Dimi has since become an institution in her homeland and a valued performer in Europe and North Africa . She gave an absolutely unforgettable performance at last January's Festival in the Desert near Timbuktu in northern Mali . This is the first chance that UK audiences will have had to see Dimi in full flow for many a year. Don't miss it whatever you do.
Courtesy of Andy Morgan, July 2004
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