The musical links between Cuba and West Africa have been explored before, though never with such experimental zest, or by two people so blessed with charisma and talent.
Hotshot Cuban pianist Roberto Fonseca first collaborated with Malian singer-songwriter and actress Fatoumata Diawara in 2012, on his AfroCuban album, YO. The sparks they made led to a European tour and live release, At Home, a sentiment reinforced at this transatlantic get-together.
Fonseca and Diawara entered arm-in-arm, the Cuban in his trademark trilby, the Malian in a high-rise headwrap and vivid dress. What followed was a set of songs picked from albums by each, reworked with the help of musicians on bass, guitar, kit drums and kamale n’goni, Mali’s harp-lute. The latter’s face-off with Fonseca’s piano was a high point in an evening crammed with them.
Diawara mesmerised: spinning a calabash strung with cowrie shells into the air, slinging a red-and-white Fender Stratocaster over her chest and singing in French and Bambara of lost childhoods and women’s freedom in a voice both textured and powerful.
Stage left, seated between a baby grand and an electric keyboard, Fonseca played the sort of adventurous high-energy rhythms that have made him a reference point; a sizzling Cuban-only descarga felt God-given. Later, when Diawara whipped off her headdress and danced, the crowd danced with her.
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