Amadou Bagayoko, a Malian guitarist and composer who along with his spouse, the singer Mariam Doumbia, shaped Amadou & Mariam, inventing a broadly accessible sound that made followers of individuals worldwide who in any other case knew little about music from Africa, died on Friday in Bamako, Mali’s capital. He was 70.
His demise was introduced by the Malian authorities, which didn’t present a trigger. He and Ms. Doumbia lived in Bamako.
Within the late 2000s and early 2010s, Amadou & Mariam was regularly described as the brand new century’s most profitable African musical act.
Mr. Bagayoko, who grew up listening to Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd, known as their sound “Afro-rock,” and the group commonly mixed his winding guitar solos with, for instance, the pounding of a West African djembe drum.
But the group’s music additionally constantly advanced. Their breakout hit, the 2005 album “Dimanche à Bamako,” had chatty spoken asides, sirens, the hubbub of crowds — metropolis sounds was melodies. Their 2008 album “Welcome to Mali,” conversely, embraced an digital fashion of funk, opening with a tune, “Sabali,” that includes Damon Albarn of the arty hip-hop group Gorillaz.
What was constant was a candy, sleek sound that also had the ability to construct to crescendos, with Ms. Doumbia’s alto reaching clear, nice resonance over a wealthy orchestration.
Mr. Bagayoko sang, too. The couple’s lyrics had been largely in French and the West African Bambara language. Politics impressed a few of their songs, however they typically recognized native matters that might have extra widespread enchantment, as of their 2004 tune “Sénégal Fast Food.”
Amadou & Mariam had been typically grouped into the much-derided genre referred to as “world music,” however no matter provincialism that time period may appear responsible of, this was an period when many younger Individuals got here to like African musicians, together with the man Malians Ali Farka Touré and Toumani Diabaté, who died last year. Across the similar time, American stars like Bonnie Raitt and Ry Cooder made pilgrimages to Bamako to jam with native artists.
“What they do hearkens again to basic rock and actual musicianship,” Jake Shears, the lead singer of the American indie pop band Scissor Sisters, told The Times in 2012. “Now with all bands, while you’re enjoying dwell, everyone’s obtained backing tracks occurring. Everybody’s working with a internet. They’re a correct old-school rock band.”
The origins of that coaching and talent lay within the couple’s background. Every of their lives had, to a big extent, relied on music. Mr. Bagayoko and Ms. Doumbia had been born with sight, however each grew to become blind as kids due to poor medical remedy.
Amadou Bagayoko was born on Oct. 24, 1954, in Bamako. His father, Ibrahima Bagayogo, was a bricklaying teacher, and his mom, Mariam Diarra, devoted herself to elevating their 14 kids.
Amadou was born milky eyed, with cataracts, however he went blind solely step by step. A physician later instructed his household that the boy’s actual challenge had truly been a trachoma an infection addressed too late. It was additionally not possible in Mali then to get a cornea transplant, which might have saved Amadou’s imaginative and prescient.
“In these days,” Mr. Bagayoko wrote within the couple’s joint memoir, “Away from the Gentle of Day” (2010), “being blind was the worst factor that might occur to you in Malian society. It was tantamount to being a beggar.”
From virtually his infancy, Amadou obtained used to “drowning his sorrows in music,” he wrote. He grew to become adequate on the flute and harmonica for his instructor to ask him to play the Malian nationwide anthem after class day by day.
An thought shaped in his younger thoughts. “Music,” he wrote, “can be my passage out of poverty.”
Across the age of 13, an uncle started educating Amadou the guitar. He quickly realized he might differentiate guitars by producer based mostly on sound.
Earlier than lengthy, Amadou was enjoying with Les Ambassadeurs du Motel, one among Mali’s best-known musical teams. He additionally started attending the Institute for the Younger Blind, Mali’s first fashionable college for the blind. A teenage lady there was extremely regarded for her singing: Mariam Doumbia. She had been blind because the age of 5 from untreated measles.
Mariam confirmed Amadou lyrics she had written concerning the harsh actuality of being disabled in Mali. Amadou started setting her songs to music.
They performed collectively for years simply as mates and collaborators. In 1980, dancing at a celebration, Mr. Bagayoko declared that his true emotions for her had been romantic. Ms. Doumbia kissed him. “I felt the doorways of paradise opening,” he wrote of their memoir.
Native information shops coated the wedding of the 2 esteemed blind musicians. Live performance promoters from close by African nations started making them provides. They expanded their repertoire from their native Bambara to different languages like Tuareg and Senufo. Followers known as them the Blind Couple From Mali.
By 1996, they had been capable of transfer to Paris and file an album there, now singing in French. That led to “Je Pense à Toi,” their first hit outdoors Africa.
The musical globe-trotter Manu Chao produced “Dimanche à Bamako” and helped write lyrics for a few of its songs. The album offered greater than 100,000 copies in France alone in nearly per week and went on to turn out to be a world hit.
The couple gained outstanding billing at American music festivals like Bonnaroo and All Factors West, alongside bands standard within the mid-2000s like Radiohead, Kings of Leon and Animal Collective.
In 2009, they opened at a number of stadium exhibits for Coldplay. The identical 12 months, they carried out at a live performance in honor of President Barack Obama profitable the Nobel Peace Prize, and so they met Mr. Obama himself.
Their manufacturing wound down over the 2010s and 2020s, however they carried out collectively as lately as final summer season through the Paralympic Video games in Paris. As of Sunday, their website still listed dates for a European tour in Could and June.
Mr. Bagayoko and Ms. Doumbia had three kids, together with a son, Sam, who can be a musician, in addition to a number of grandchildren. Full details about survivors was not instantly obtainable.
One of many couple’s final worldwide hits was “Bofou Safou,” launched in 2017. It had a paradox that appeared acceptable for a pair who had so totally devoted their lives to music. The lyrics admonish younger males to focus much less on dancing and extra on working — but the cheerful, groovy beat challenges you to not dance.
