Amadou & Mariam will lead their own unique celebration of world music in Central Park on August 4
Rumsey Playfield, Central Park
Saturday, August 4, free, 3:00
212-360-2777
www.summerstage.org
www.amadou-mariam.com
For more than thirty years, Amadou and Mariam, the Blind Couple from Mali, have been making beautiful music together, combining the personal with the political in singing about love, compassion, freedom, social change, and good times. Both born in Bamako, guitarist Amadou Bagayoko, who lost his sight when he was sixteen, and vocalist Mariam Doumbia, who lost hers when she was five, met at the Institute for the Blind and got married in 1980. They’ve recorded seven studio albums together since 1998, displaying their intoxicating take on world music and Afro-blues while compiling a growing list of international musicians who have recorded with them. Their latest album, Folila (Nonesuch, April 2012), which means “music,” was originally going to be two very different discs, one recorded in Bamako with traditional Mali musicians, the other in New York with indie superstars, but instead it merged into one stellar collection of twelve songs featuring such special guests as Santigold, Jake Shears of the Scissor Sisters, Nick Zinner of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, members of Antibalas, Ebony Bones, Abdallah Oumbadougou, Tunde Adebimpe and Kyp Malone of TV on the Radio, and Theophilus London, among others. They also collaborated on most of the record with controversial French musician Bertrand Cantat, the former leader of Noir Désir who killed his girlfriend, popular French actress Marie Trintignant, in 2003 and was paroled in 2007 after spending less than half of his eight-year sentence in prison. On the bluesy “Oh Amadou,” one of the three songs with prominent vocals from Cantat, they sing, “There are happy days / There are miserable days / There are moments of pleasure / There are moments of suffering.” Although they do get serious, they also know how to have plenty of fun. “We’re here to cheer people up and make them happy,” they explain on “Dougou Badia,” which features Santigold, continuing, “Life’s about having fun / It’s about joy and celebration.” It all comes together most fabulously on “C’est Pas Facile Pour Les Aigles,” with Amadou and Mariam joined by Ebony Bones for a rollicking song sung in multiple languages and taking on such topics as racism and immigration. The Mali duo will be headlining a free SummerStage show in Central Park on August 4 at 3:00, on a bill with funky Kenyan quartet Just a Band and Trinidad-born Brooklyn rapper London, who is likely to join Amadou and Mariam on their Folila collaboration, “Nebe Miri.”