Dimi Mint Abba was Mauritania

Mauritania

Mauritania is a country in the Maghreb and West Africa. It is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean in the west, by Western Sahara in the north, by Algeria in the northeast, by Mali in the east and southeast, and by Senegal in the southwest...

's most famous musician. She was born Loula Bint Siddaty Ould Abba in 1958 into a low-caste ("iggawin") family specializing in the griot

Griot

A griot or jeli is a West African storyteller. The griot delivers history as a poet, praise singer, and wandering musician. The griot is a repository of oral tradition. As such, they are sometimes also called bards...

 tradition.

Life and career

Dimi's parents were both musicians (her father had been asked to compose the Mauritanian national anthem), and she began playing at an early age. Her professional career began in 1976, when she sang on the radio and then competed, the following year, in the Umm Kulthum Contest in Tunis

Tunis

Tunis is the capital of both the Tunisian Republic and the Tunis Governorate. It is Tunisia's largest city, with a population of 728,453 as of 2004; the greater metropolitan area holds some 2,412,500 inhabitants....

. Her winning song "Sawt Elfan" ("Art's Plume") has the refrain "Art's Plume is a balsam, a weapon and a guide enlightening the spirit of men", which can be interpreted to mean that artists play a more important role than warriors in society.

Her first international release was on the World Circuit record label

World Circuit (record label)

World Circuit is a world-music record label that specializes in Cuban and West African recording artists, among other international music stars. World Circuit celebrated its 20th anniversary in 2006 by releasing World Circuit Presents..., a 2-disc retrospective compilation album...

, following a recommendation from Ali Farka Touré

Ali Farka Touré

Ali Ibrahim “Farka” Touré was a Malian singer and guitarist, and one of the African continent’s most internationally renowned musicians. His music is widely regarded as representing a point of intersection of traditional Malian music and its North American cousin, the blues...

. On this album, she was accompanied by her husband Khalifa Ould Eide and her two daughters.

Later she composed famous and popular Mauritanian songs like "Hailala" and "Koumba bay bay". She died in June, 2011, in Casablanca, Morocco following a stage accident in Aioun ten days earlier when she was singing for Sahrawi public. Her death invoked a political embarrassment to the government of Mauritania who did not show any sign of sympathy towards the death of the popular musician.

Discography

• Khalifa Ould Eide & Dimi Mint Abba, Moorish Music from Mauritania. World Circuit WCD 019, 1990.
• Dimi Mint Abba, Music and Songs of Mauritania, Auvidis Ethnic 1992.

External links

• The Independent: Dimi Mint Abba: Musician known as 'la diva du désert' and hailed by Ali Farka Touré as Africa's greatest singer
• BBC Press Release on her 2006 appearance in The Proms
  The Proms
  The Proms, more formally known as The BBC Proms, or The Henry Wood Promenade Concerts presented by the BBC, is an eight-week summer season of daily orchestral classical music concerts and other events held annually, predominantly in the Royal Albert Hall in London...
  
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• BBC Recording of her 2006 appearance at WOMAD.
• BBC Report on her 2004 appearance at WOMAD
  World of Music, Arts and Dance
  WOMAD is an international arts festival. The central aim of WOMAD is to celebrate the world's many forms of music, arts and dance.-History:...
  
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• Mondomix
• Afropop worldwide
• Culturebase (in German)