Guitarist and singer Amadou Bagayoko of the star Malian music duo Amadou & Mariam has died aged 70 following an illness, his family said on Friday, paying tribute to the Grammy-nominated blind musician.
With his wife Mariam Doumbia, Bagayoko formed half of a group whose blend of traditional rock guitars and Western blues saw them sell millions of albums and conquer dance floors across the world.
Among other achievements the pair, who met at the institute for the young blind in the Malian capital, Bamako, composed the official song for the 2006 FIFA World Cup in Germany and played at the closing ceremony concert for last year’s Paris Games.
Photo: AFP
“He had been ill for a while,” said Bagayoko’s son in law, Youssouf Fadiga.
Their France-based manager Yannick Tardy, who had just spoken to Doumbia by phone, said that Bagayoko was taken to a clinic after feeling fatigue, before dying in the afternoon.
Confirming the musician’s death, Malian Minister of Culture Mamou Daffe said he felt “dismay” at the loss.
After meeting in 1976, when Bagayoko was 21 and Doumbia 18, the pair discovered they had similar tastes in music.
They began touring together from the 1980s, mixing traditional west African instruments such as the kora and balafon with the Pink Floyd and James Brown records from their youth.
At the start they sang songs to raise awareness of the problems facing their peers living with blindness and disabilities.
A few decades later, their 2004 album Dimanche a Bamako (Sunday in Bamako) brought them worldwide success backed up by the title track.
Dubbed “the blind couple from Mali,” the duo became one of Africa’s best-selling and beloved pairs, playing alongside the likes of Damon Albarn of Blur and Gorillaz and Pink Floyd guitarist David Gilmour — a childhood idol.
They went on to play at festivals including Glastonbury, share bills with Coldplay, U2 and Stevie Wonder, and play for former US president Barack Obama at the concert marking his Nobel Peace Prize award.
“There were many musicians, many artists there, and Barack Obama came to meet us,” Bagayoko said in an interview last year.
“We talked a bit. Barack Obama told us that he liked our music. Malian music too. We were very, very happy,” Doumbia added.
Bagayoko is survived by three children.
Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr has fired his national police chief, who gained attention for leading the separate arrests of former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte on orders of the International Criminal Court and televangelist Apollo Carreon Quiboloy, who is on the FBI’s most-wanted list for alleged child sex trafficking. Philippine Executive Secretary Lucas Bersamin did not cite a reason for the removal of General Nicolas Torre as head of the 232,000-member national police force, a position he was appointed to by Marcos in May and which he would have held until 2027. He was replaced by another senior police general, Jose
POWER CONFLICT: The US president threatened to deploy National Guards in Baltimore. US media reports said he is also planning to station troops in Chicago US President Donald Trump on Sunday threatened to deploy National Guard troops to yet another Democratic stronghold, the Maryland city of Baltimore, as he seeks to expand his crackdown on crime and immigration. The Republican’s latest online rant about an “out of control, crime-ridden” city comes as Democratic state leaders — including Maryland Governor Wes Moore — line up to berate Trump on a high-profile political stage. Trump this month deployed the National Guard to the streets of Washington, in a widely criticized show of force the president said amounts to a federal takeover of US capital policing. The Guard began carrying
Ukrainian drone attacks overnight on several Russian power and energy facilities forced capacity reduction at the Kursk Nuclear Power Plant and set a fuel export terminal in Ust-Luga on fire, Russian officials said yesterday. A drone attack on the Kursk nuclear plant, not far from the border with Ukraine, damaged an auxiliary transformer and led to 50 percent reduction in the operating capacity at unit three of the plant, the plant’s press service said. There were no injuries and a fire sparked by the attack was promptly extinguished, the plant said. Radiation levels at the site and in the surrounding
‘DELIBERATE PROVOCATION’: Pyongyang said that Seoul had used a machine gun to fire at North Korean troops who were working to permanently seal the southern border South Korea fired warning shots at North Korean soldiers that briefly crossed the heavily fortified border earlier this week, Seoul said yesterday after Pyongyang accused it of risking “uncontrollable” tensions. South Korean President Lee Jae-myung has sought warmer ties with the nuclear-armed North and vowed to build “military trust,” but Pyongyang has said it has no interest in improving relations with Seoul. Seoul’s military said several North Korean soldiers crossed the border on Tuesday while working in the heavily mined demilitarized zone (DMZ) separating the two Koreas. The incursion prompted “our military to fire warning shots,” South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff
RSS