AMADOU AND MARIAM

Amadou Bagayoko, the award-winning Malian singer and guitarist in the husband-and-wife duo Amadou & Mariam, died on Friday, April 4, 2025, in his hometown of Bamako. He was 70. Alongside his wife Mariam Doumbia, Bagayoko found international success creating music as Amadou & Mariam. The two combined traditional African instruments with more Western-inspired rock, pop, and blues in the hopes of making Malian music universal. On some records, that meant invoking their regional sounds through creative methods, like playing electric guitar as if it were the ngoni, a West African stringed instrument. Over the course of their multiple decades-long career, they more than succeeded at their goal, performing around the world with artists like Stevie Wonder and U2, recording lauded collaborations with Santigold and TV on the Radio, and earning high-profile awards in the music industry. Born in October 1954, Bagayoko lost his vision due to a congenital cataract at age read more...