BIO :

Contagiously enthousiastic, Fania Niang has a beaming smile. Hailing from Sénegal, she is singer, author, composer, performer. She entered the land of music at a very young age. Her mother was a percussionist, dancer, choreographer. Fania has fond mempries of watching her with pride and admiration as she improvised songs while playing the callbass.

Through her music and her journeys to the four corners of the earth, Fania has learned to untie the knots of her cord, as she tells us in the perfect little poem that opens her album. Untie the knots and invite her audience into her universe.
From the first notes of "Silmakha" on, Fania, brings us into her warm, passionate, multicolour musical adventure, With time, she has gained speed in untying the knots, flying with her own wings, creating unusual expereinces. Which is how she arrived in Paris in the 1980 's. There she met Jean François Bizot, King of the Underground, founder of the magazine Actuel and Radio Nova, and Nova magazine. He incited her to go to the end of her dreams, to do what she was born for, Music. Jean Paul Goude also lit up on Fania. She became his model.
And one Jean Paul led to another, Gaultier, with whom Fania worked for three years. She then collaborated with different groups: the brothers Touré Kunda, pioneers in France of African Music, and then Kaoma the renowned group of the Lambada in the 1990's, with over 14 million records sold.

Today Fania has created three solo albums. "Sopi", which came out in 2000, "Naturel" in 2004, and today,the latest "Silmakha", which means blind in Wolof. She brought it out on her own label Passion Music.
In "Silmakha" Fania enters the world of a non-seeing person who rediscovers the world and its people, who questions the meanings of life and dreams of peace. Let her guide you. Fania opens her heart and asks simply, "please, can you help me cross over"? She has a very personal way of using her voice. It reminds one of the vulnerability of Nina Simone.
We hear ourselves in the spell binding piece "Ma Robe Noire" (produced by Gerald Toto) in which the velvet cloth and the layers of lining hide and reveal the thousand and one gifts of Woman.

Today, excellently surrounded, Fania collaborated with author Richelle Dassin, and the famed guitarists: François Lasserre, Fadjala Diawara, Gerald Toto . As well as, Ali Boulo Santo on the cora, Ignace Fofana on bass, Papis Diongue on drums And Fix, from the group Java, on accordeon, and others.

Aline Afanoukoé
Radio Nova