Amadou & Mariam

This week on Fridays Live, SFJAZZ presents Amadou & Mariam, the famed “blind couple from Mali.” The Bamako-born husband and wife have risen through the African and European music scenes to become one of the hottest world music acts today, sharing the stage with artists including Coldplay, U2, Alicia Keys and Pink Floyd’s David Gilmour. They bring their grooving, GRAMMY-nominated mix of Malian pop and Hendrix-flavored blues-rock with “spine-tingling harmonies that make the music soar.”

Amadou and Mariam turned the audience into a gyrating rave with chorus after chorus of blues-like call and response
JazzTimes

ABOUT AMADOU & MARIAM
Amadou & Mariam, the famed “blind couple from Mali,” bring their grooving, GRAMMY-nominated mix of Malian pop and Hendrix-flavored blues-rock with “spine-tingling harmonies that make the music soar” (Spin­). The Bamako-born husband and wife met at while students at Mali’s Institute for the Young Blind, and found a shared interest in music and performing. Since that momentous meeting, the couple has risen through the African and European music scenes to become one of the hottest world music acts today, sharing the stage with artists including Coldplay, U2, Alicia Keys and Pink Floyd’s David Gilmour.

Five and half years after the release of their star-studded Nonesuch release Folila — a recording featuring collaborations with Damon Albarn, TV On The Radio, Santigold, and members of Antibalas and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs that brought a new dimension of notoriety to the duo — they return with 2017’s La Confusion, a move to a more intimate style featuring primarily African collaborators including kora player Djeli Moussa Diawara and ngoni master Youssouf Diabaté. At a time when Africa’s cultural and social issues have become so deeply politicized, La Confusion is a fitting statement of gratitude and connectedness, an album that “offers uplift in a time of global insecurity” (Pitchfork).