Amadou & Mariam's double life

The Blind Duo's African Career

Paris 

27/09/2005 - 

Long before they achieved hit status this year with Dimanche à Bamako, Amadou & Mariam were already known to hundreds of thousands of music fans. The famous "blind duo from Mali" recorded a whole series of cassettes, extracts of which have now been brought together on 1990-1995 Le meilleur des années maliennes. The compilation focuses on the repertoire on which the duo - currently on a mini-tour of the UK until 2 October - built their popularity in West Africa.

Amadou, in his wisdom, wrote the words and Mariam sang them: “Kobè yé wati yé”  ("every thing in its time"). Now, after years of singing and performing in West Africa, the duo have hit it big in the charts in Europe – and the time has come to bring out a compilation of the early years! The sixteen carefully chosen tracks on 1990-1995 Le Meilleur des années maliennes draw on material from the first five cassettes recorded by Amadou Bagayoko and Mariam Doumbia, the husband and wife team who met at Bamako's Institute for the Young Blind in 1975. All five were produced by Aliyu Maïkano, mostly in Yopougon, the teeming suburb north of Abidjan, the economic capital of Ivory Coast.

The early years

Amadou & Mariam's first two cassettes - Volumes 1 & 2 - arrived simultaneously on the market at the end of 1988. And two songs, À chacun son problème and Téré La Sèbè, went on to receive extensive airplay on Ivory Coast's FM. The couple soon found themselves in great demand as guest stars on national television and, by 1989, they had already embarked on a major tour of Ivory Coast, playing in all the main towns from Abidjan, Daloa, Gagnoa and Divo to Sinfra, Man, Bouaké and Korhogo. Everywhere they went, the blind duo won hearts and minds, gaining new fans via radio and television, but also wooing a new public at local railway stations, open-air snack bars, village dancehalls and neighbourhood parties. The Malian double act's proverbial-sounding songs about the value of humility, humanism, consciousness-raising activism and optimism struck a chord with this new fanbase. Won over by their ballads infused with teachings from the popular faith of Mali's Bamanans (Bambaras), Ivorians fell under the charm of Amadou & Mariam's transcendent prose.

The Malian duo could never possibly have dreamt of the impact their minimalist vocals-and-guitar style could make! Following the success of their Ivory Coast tour, the couple went straight back to work in a studio belonging to James Scot (who was at that point conductor and keyboard-player with the "Orchestre de la Radiodiffusion télévision ivoirienne.") This time round, they experimented with a new formula, introducing bass, drums and keyboards on certain tracks. Two new cassettes were released at the end of 1989 : Le couple aveugle du Mali, Amadou Bagayoko et Mariam Doumbia, volume 3 and volume 4. The single releases Kanasson and Bêni Dakan exploded on the radio airwaves and, thanks to an appearance on the cult TV show Afrique étoile, the Malian duo ended up wowing the entire country. From local concert venues to the convention centre at the Hôtel Ivoire and the French Cultural Institute, Amadou & Mariam were everywhere - and even when they were not performing they were still in the public eye thanks to the media. Before long, the duo's success had spread to neighbouring countries and Amadou & Mariam fever even reached their homeland, Mali. In 1993, Aliyu Maïkano continued the Amadou & Mariam saga, producing a fifth cassette, recorded this time round at Studio Oubien in Bamako.

Backyard recording

In actual fact, the compilation 1990-1995 Le Meilleur des années maliennes (1990-1995 the Best of the Malian Years) covers more of the duo's Ivorian years than their time in Mali. Amadou & Mariam's songs may have been written and performed across Mali for years, but most of them were actually captured on cassette for the first time in Ivory Coast. And it was from the shores of the Abidjan lagoon that they radiated out through West Africa.

Amadou & Mariam's success in Ivory Coast was obviously the result of many long years' hard work in Mali. Their early career back home included over a decade of performance through Bamako's Institute for the Young Blind. Both husband and wife were involved in the Institute's orchestra, Eclipse, from 1976, he working as the group's guitarist and leading the instrumentalists while Mariam, the lead singer, directed fellow singers and dancers. Together with the Institute's artistic ensemble, Amadou and Mariam travelled the length and breadth of Mali, performing all the way from Kayes and Ségou to Sikasso and Mopti. They used theatre, music and artistic workshops to show that it was possible to overcome blindness - and any other handicap for that matter - and lead a normal life with access to education and professional careers.

The pair continued their awareness-raising mission up until 1985 when they decided to launch their own professional career. The following year, Amadou and Mariam moved to Ivory Coast, the epicentre of the region's music industry. In fact, Amadou and Mariam's names were already known on the African music scene. In 1984, the duo wrote Djama, a hit single from the Ivorian singer Nayanka Bell's debut album If You Came to Go. (Thanks to 1990-1995 Le Meilleur des années maliennes, the song can now be enjoyed in its original version, Kobè Yé Watiyé).

Aliyu Maïkano arrived in Amadou & Mariam's life a few years later, after discovering them on a variety show hosted by a  presenter-cum-talent scout who had got the duo to record six tracks at the Radio Côte-d’Ivoire studios. After auditioning them for himself, Maïkano recorded a couple of dozen songs with the duo, using a basic radio-cassette recorder in his backyard (in the midst of the noise and clamour of the bustling Kabadougou cinema neighbourhood in Yopougon). Thus, in 1988, the second instalment of Amadou & Mariam's Ivorian odyssey began.

After their triumphant tour of Mali in 1991, Amadou & Mariam called a halt to their Ivorian sojourn and did not return to Abidjan again. In 1994, the Malian businessman Sékou “Vié” Minta brought the duo to France for the first time, where they performed at the Farafina restaurant and in the Paris suburb of Saint-Denis. The French leg of the couple's career did not begin in earnest until 1998, however, with Sou Ni Tilé, which was swiftly followed by two other albums. Then, Manu Chao heard the Malian duo on his car radio one day They teamed up to make the best-selling album Dimanche à Bamako – and the rest, as they say, is history!

Amadou & Mariam 1990-1995, Le meilleur des années maliennes (Because Music/Wagram) 2005

Concerts :
09/28 Birmingham
09/29 London
10/01 Glasgow
10/02 Bristol

Solo  Soro

Translation : Julie  Street