Live
SOLD OUT • Fatoumata Diawara + Siân Pottok
12.02.25 / 8pm
Big Hall · Live - Folk Wassoulou
€30 - €33 - €35
Fatoumata Diawara
Many experiences have helped shape the singer's voice and forge her own musical identity, culminating in London Ko. The model she proposes finds its source in her own creativity, which carries the voice of emancipation. With songs like Netara ("Je m'en vais") and Yada, which sings of the arrogance of celebrity, she reappropriates ancestral vocal techniques, no longer to tell the story, but to get ahead of things.
With the presence of Africa's rising stars, the Ghanaian rapper M.anifest and the new voice of Afrobeat Yemi Alade, Fatou is also in the era of turning towards the other and towards what is most innovative in Africa today. The video clip for Nsera, in which she mobilizes Africa's most influential contemporary artists, showcases dance, art and fashion. But the message is also one of a multiculturalism that still has everything to reinvent. London Ko proposes a prophetic vision of what Africa can do by inventing an alternative, inclusive space-time, where it is possible to become master of one's own destiny. Angie Stone, Roberto Fonseca, -M-, Damon Albarn - they're all part of the adventure to forge a new world. By taking care of the form, the artist participates not only in the care of the world, but also in the care of her ancestors, because for Fatoumata Diawara, everything is linked.
©Alun Be
Siân Pottok
Author, composer, musician, performer and photographer, Siân Pottok reveals an interconnected world, a cultural synthesis forged by her Indian, Congolese, Belgian and Slovak origins, as well as her American roots. Born in West Palm Beach, she grew up between Belgium and New York, holding dual Belgian and American citizenship.
After studying at the ATLA school and the Nadia-Lili Boulanger jazz conservatory in Paris in 2004, Siân began her career performing in Paris jazz clubs. In 2009, she moved to New York, where she lived for four years, working odd jobs while performing in Brooklyn and Manhattan clubs. During this period, she had the chance to sing alongside such great musicians as Richard Bona, Mike Stern, Grégoire Maret and Clarence Penn.
In 2012, Siân travels to India to work with an NGO (IRDRP) caring for children orphaned by AIDS, where she runs cultural workshops based around music. In 2020 and 2022, she travels to Southern Africa (Zambia, South Africa, Botswana), invited by the Alliances Françaises network, to carry out cultural and photographic activities with women in precarious situations (single mothers, refugees, victims of violence). She also works with a number of humanitarian organizations, including VDAY (founded by Eve Ensler, writer of The Vagina Monologues), SOS Children's Villages and Women Safe.
Learning the cello under the tutelage of Vincent Segal introduced her to Ballaké Sissoko and Cyril Atef, and to new musical horizons. Growing up with the songs of Myriam Makeba, Kadja Nin, Harry Belafonte and Papa Wemba, Siân felt a deep need to return to her African roots. The Kamele Ngoni, a traditional West African harp, with its celestial and spiritual dimension, became both the double of her voice and the backbone of her crossbreeding. It is this path that has reconnected her to her origins. Trained by the master Abou Diarra, she adopted this instrument, which triggered a creative impulse within her. Since then, Siân has integrated electronic sounds into her compositions, creating a musical lace that links all her origins.
In parallel with her album, Siân is also part of the Claude Nougaro tribute project NEW'GARO, alongside Thomas De Pourquery, Sanseverino, Jowee Omicil, Marion Rampal, Gabi Hartmann... which will play this summer at Jazz à Vienne, Les Suds d'Arles, Jazz in Marciac.
If she had to be ranked, Siân (pronounced “SHAN”) would be alongside exploratory artists and hybrid creators such as Björk, Joni Mitchell, Billie Eilish, Yaël Naïm and Jenny Wilson, perpetually in search of reinvention.
©Yann Orhan
Where ?
Big Hall · Live
La Belle Électrique
12 Esplanade Andry-Farcy
38000 Grenoble
Useful info
Opening hours : Wednesday to Friday, 10am to 1am, and Saturday from 4pm, but also from 6pm if a concert is scheduled.
Doors open : 1 hour before the start of the concert.
Dressing room : €2
Get there
Tramway : Line A stop Berriat - Le Magasin
Bus : Line C5 Université Biologie / Palais de Justice stop "Berriat - Le Magasin".
Train : From Grenoble train station, take tramway A towards "Fontaine La Poya", stop at "Berriat- Le Magasin".
Bicycles : 300 parking spaces available.
Car : Vallier-Catane parking lot, Square des Fusillés or near Rue Ampère.
