General
Amadou Bagayoko, Half of Malian Duo Who Went Global, Dies at 70
As Amadou & Mariam, he and his wife were improbable pop stars on two counts. Their style was venturesome and eclectic, and they were blind virtuosos.
Amadou Bagayoko, a Malian guitarist and composer who with his wife, the singer Mariam Doumbia, formed Amadou & Mariam, inventing a broadly accessible sound that made fans of people worldwide who otherwise knew little about music from Africa, died on Friday in Bamako, Mali’s capital. He was 70.
His death was announced by the Malian government, which did not provide a cause. He and Ms. Doumbia lived in Bamako.
In the late 2000s and early 2010s, Amadou & Mariam was regularly described as the new century’s most successful African musical act.
Mr. Bagayoko, who grew up listening to Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd, called their sound “Afro-rock,” and the group regularly combined his winding guitar solos with, for example, the pounding of a West African djembe drum.
Yet the group’s music also consistently evolved. Their breakout hit, the 2005 album “Dimanche à Bamako,” had chatty spoken asides, sirens, the hubbub of crowds — city sounds turned into melodies. Their 2008 album “Welcome to Mali,” conversely, embraced an electronic style of funk, opening with a song, “Sabali,” featuring Damon Albarn of the arty hip-hop group Gorillaz.
What was consistent was a sweet, graceful sound that still had the power to build to crescendos, with Ms. Doumbia’s alto achieving clear, pleasant resonance over a rich orchestration.
