Amadou Bagayoko and Mariam Doumbia, better known as Amadou & Mariam or "The Blind Couple of Mali," are two of Mali's best and best-known musicians. They rose to international prominence with their Manu Chao-produced 2005 album "Dimanche à Bamako," and have since released several commercially successful crossover albums, most recently 2012's "Folila," which featured such varied artists as Bassekou Kouyate, TV on the Radio, and Jake Shears of the Scissor Sisters.
Commercially, the duo has never done better, but aesthetically, they're continuing to drift further and further from what I think of as their core sound. Frankly, I'm not a fan of A&M's post-"Dimanche" albums, so I've decided to go back to the roots of their career with a review of their first album.
"Sou Ni Tilé" ("Night and Day" in Bambara) was Amadou & Mariam's first international album, released in 1998. It's a big album; more than an hour long, and filled with A&M's musical influences, both Malian and Western. Amadou's understated, solid accompaniment and solo guitar is supported by drums and flutes of every variety, brass, harmonica and Hammond B3 organ. This is a studio album par excellence, with a host of supporting musicians including "Mr. Matu" aka François Matuszenski, the current keyboard player for perennial French New Wave rockers Indochine, and the classically trained Hindi violinist Johar Ali Khan.
The sound presages that of later A&M albums like "Tje Ni Mousso" (Men and Women) and "Wati" (Time), but hits harder than either. The duo's distinctive sound, built on Amadou's pentatonic call-and-response electric guitar melodies and Mariam's piercing, nasal voice (which sounds much better than my description!) is even present on the heavily-produced "Dimanche à Bamako," certainly their best-known album. But to my ears, "Sou Ni Tilé" is the purest mix of A&M's songwriting and aesthetic with Western artists. There are love songs ("Je pense a toi," "Mon amour ma cherie," "On se donne la main"), songs exhorting the listener to work ("Baara"), songs about the necessity of courage and solidarity in the face of life's difficulty ("Combattants," the refrain of which translates as "Life is a fight, and we're the fighters" and "C'est la vie"), and praise-songs for groups as diverse as the Dogon ethnic group ("Dogons") and employees of the national radio station, ORTM ("A radio mogo"). Rounding out the album are a few all-Bambara language tracks and the excellent "Pauvre type" (Poor guy), a minor rocker (in French) detailing the preparations of a penniless Bamakois for a weekend party with his buddies.
Having honed their chops and written new material in Ivory Coast (see the Sonodisc release "Se Te Djon Ye"), A&M were if anything over-prepared for their first international album. Of the pre-"Dimanche" albums, "Sou ni Tile" is by far the strongest. The first track, "Je pense à toi," remains one of their most durable hits both in Mali and abroad, along with the classic (and thematically similar) "Mon amour ma chérie " (My love my dear). Another song I heard a lot on ORTM (Mali's national radio station) was "A Chacun son Problème" (To each his problem), which twists a traditional Bambara proverb to ask the rhetorical question "Be kunun kunan t'i ka sogoma da wa?" (Whenever you wake up, isn't that your morning?). The mix of Western elements, including the electric guitar, organ, and harmonica, and Malian elements, like A&M's constant use of proverbs, call and response guitar phrases, combine to produce a universal album on such themes as love, human responsibilities, and the necessity of struggling against a difficult world. Amadou & Mariam are at the pinnacle of Malian rock right now, along with Bassekou Kouyaté, and for anyone who's been seduced by their pentatonic grooves, "Sou ni Tilé" is a must-have album. Highly recommended.
