Amadou & Mariam performed for a frenzied, sold-out crowd last night at New York's Webster Hall. They also stopped by Late Night with Jimmy Fallon to perform "Africa" off their new album, Welcome to Mali, on last night's episode, with The Roots' Black Thought. Last Saturday, the couple performed for a sold-out crowd in Boston. Reports the Boston Globe: "[I]f Amadou and Mariam each shone individually, they practically glowed when they performed together." Previewing tomorrow's show outside DC, the Washington City Paper describes the new album as "wonderful" and says it's "Amadou’s rhythms that drive their songs forward, and his joyous-feeling choruses that make the tunes transcendent."
Amadou & Mariam performed for a frenzied, sold-out crowd last night at New York's Webster Hall, offering songs from Welcome to Mali, their latest Nonesuch release, and from their previous album, Dimanche à Bamako. They also stopped by Late Night with Jimmy Fallon to perform "Africa" off the new album on last night's episode. Black Thought, of the show's house band, The Roots, sat in for K'Naan, the Somali-born rapper featured on the recording. You can watch the performance online at latenightwithjimmyfallon.
On Saturday, the couple performed for a sold-out crowd at the Paradise in Boston, for which they were "backed by a fierce, tight four-piece band and two backup singers dancing in near-perfect synchronization the entire time," says Boston Globe correspondent Marc Hirsh. What's more, he asserts, "if Amadou and Mariam each shone individually, they practically glowed when they performed together, as on the ecstatically frenetic 'Sebeke.'" Read the concert review at boston.com. You can watch a live performance video of "Sebeke" in Paris last year at nonesuch.com/media.
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After tonight's show at Philadelphia's World Cafe Live, the tour heads to the Birchmere outside DC in Alexandria, Virginia. The Washington City Paper's Steve Kiviat says, "Their wonderful latest CD, Welcome to Mali, is catchy, creative Afropop ... Just as their 2005 Dimanche à Bamako went global via mixing traditional Malian desert blues guitar, Afropop melodies, and Islamic-rooted vocals with producer/collaborator Manu Chao’s ska and Western pop, Welcome to Mali mixes their home country’s sounds with psychedelic guitar, African rap courtesy of K’naan, and some programmed funky beats."
Even with the A-list contributors to their previous record and their latest, Kiviat insists, "what makes their music special is not their patrons, but the stringwork and vocals of 54 year-old guitarist Amadou Bagayoko ... [I]t is Amadou’s rhythms that drive their songs forward, and his joyous-feeling choruses that make the tunes transcendent."
Read the complete article at washingtoncitypaper.com.
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