Ami Yerewolo

Ami Yerewolo is Mali’s first female Mandinka rapper. “I make music to express what I feel and what I feel is rooted in the Malian society that shaped me. I could never rap like an American or a French person. It’s up to me to show who I really am, what I love, what I represent,” she says. Yerewolo uses traditional Malian instruments like the kora harp, the ngoni, and the yebara shaker and persistently raps in Bambara, the lingua franca of southern Mali. Rap allows her to show anger and other emotions, and let her present who she is and where she comes from. Yerewolo is an ambassador for women who break away from cultural norms, become independent, and a spokeswoman for the challenges in her country. In 2020, her music became more political as a response to society’s collapse of confidence in Malian politics, which came up in her single “Lettre Ouverte” (“Open Letter”). In her latest album “AY” from 2021, with up-tempo and modern beats, club sounds and afro beats, Ami sums up: “With this record, I am myself: I rap, I raise awareness, I make people dance, and I prove to everyone that Malian rap is at the cutting edge.”  Biography Ami Yerewolo was born in the small town of Mahina, in the southwestern region of Mali. In 2013, at the age of 23, she left her family to pursue her interest in music and become a professional rapper. She joined Yeli Fuzzo and Fanga Fing, one of her heroes, until the male-dominated rap scene started to depress her. “As a woman you have to fight to get what you want,” she says. It was in 2014 that she released the first female Malian rap album “Naissance” (“Birth”). With much perseverance and determination, her second album “Mon Combat” (“My Fight”) came out in 2018. After traveling to Senegal in 2017 to take part in a female rap festival, she decided to create the festival “Mali a des Rappeuses” (“Mali has female rappers”).  For her, the festival is “a community of sisters emancipating themselves.” Now she is signed with the Cameroonian producer Blick Bassy and his label Othatiq AA and, in 2021, released her latest album “AY”.  Website Spotify