SONGS OF HOPE AND HEALING
Natu Camara
Around the turn of this century, Natu Camara began her music career in the Ideal Black Girls, a Guinean quartet considered West Africa’s first all-female R. & B. and hip-hop group. Since relocating to Harlem, the Ivory Coast-born singer has flipped her musical equation. Where before she was an African artist performing music with an American edge, now she’s a New Yorker playing work steeped in Afro-pop. The songs on her solo album “Dimedi,” from 2018, are delivered in English, French, and her native Susu, and all are cast in a lush bounce that reflects its gestation in a Mali studio. Though constitutionally upbeat, Camara’s work is rooted in desolation: she came to her current musical incarnation in the wake of her husband’s death from cancer, playing a guitar he had gifted her as a wedding present. Through woe, she radiates.
Jay Ruttenberg - New Yorker Magazine
.jpg)
"Indeed the song’s combination of looped rhythm and lyricism is mesmerizing. It’s music in which to get lost and not want to be “found.” Quote: Lou Fancher EBX news.
Natu Camara is a wonderful new voice from West Africa with an effervescent solo debut album, Dimedi" - WFMU
“Camara was winning over the audience with her songs feeling the vibes of her brand of music.” - Washington Informer
"Natu is a force of musical nature." - WGXC 90.7
“She has a haunting voice that will draw you into her colorful experiences through song and guitar”. Quote Ron Scott from New York Amsterdam News.
“Guinean born singer Natu Camara performed at the Festival Internation de la Francophonie in DC bringing down the house.” Quote: Allo Africa News
"Natu writes exquisite melodies and cosmopolitan rhythms of contemporary West Africa"
- Mondo Local