Amadou Bagayoko, a world-renowned Malian singer and guitarist, and one half of the hugely successful duo Amadou & Mariam, has died at the age of 70.
First reported by members of the Malian government, Bagayoko’s death was later confirmed by the BBC.
With his wife, Mariam Doumbia, Amadou Bagayoko created a unique sound propelled by his playing, which was informed just as much by European and American rock as it was by the West African music he first heard growing up.
Over the course of their 40+ year career, Amadou & Mariam sold millions of records total on their native content, Europe, and the Americas, and played on the main stages of some of the biggest festivals in the latter two continents.
“We have a sound that’s part blues, part rock, part African,” Bagayoko is the mother. Afrobeat in a 2018 interview. “I think we mix these sounds together, and that’s it. And then it’s the rhythm, of course.”
Born in 1954, Bagayoko suffered from severe vision issues in his childhood, eventually leading to blindness by his teen years. Even with that impediment, though, he was a quick learner on the guitar and within just a couple of years, he could reportedly distinguish a Strat from a Les Paul by sound alone.
In his early ’20s, he met Mariam Doumbia – who also lost her vision at an early age – and formed a duo with her a couple of years later.
For two decades, Amadou & Mariam, as they came to be known, gained popularity in their home country and region, but it was in 2005, with the release of their album Sunday in Bamakothat they found international success.
Nominated for a Grammy, the album garnered the attention of Blur frontman and Gorillaz mastermind Damon Albarn, who co-produced its 2008 follow-up, Welcome to Maliand invited the duo to open for Blur at a pair of massive shows at London’s Hyde Park the following year. 2009 also saw the duo open for Coldplay at a number of stadium shows, and jam with David Gilmour – the idol Bayoko's – the charity concert.
“What (Amadou & Mariam) do harkens back to classic rock and real musicianship,” said another admirer, the Scissor Sisters’ Jake Shears. “Now with all bands, when you’re playing live, everybody’s got backing tracks going on. Everyone’s working with a net. They are a proper old-school rock band.”
Other highlights of the band’s career include a performance for Barack Obama when the President was awarded with the Nobel Peace Prize, and at the closing ceremony of the Paris 2024 Paralympic Games.
Speaking about the band’s aims Bagayoko said in a 2018 interview with Afrobeat“In our songs, we are always encouraging people to choose the good road – to work hard, and to keep peace with their neighbors.
“We talk about love between men and women, and solidarity among people, because people find themselves in music. They can discover different nationalities without thinking about white or black, African or European or American. When we sing together, everything is good.”
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