Amadou and Mariam's "Welcome to Mali" will be released in the U.S. on March 24 by Because Music/Nonesuch Records and followed by a spring tour. (They were fantastic at Coachella a few years back).
The album has already been issued overseas and the Guardian named it No. 2 on their year-end list, right behind Bon Iver's "For Emma, ForeverAgo." The U.K. newspaper called it "the most exciting pop album of 2008."
Singer Mariam Doumbia and her husband, guitarist/vocalist Amadou Bagayoko, have been making music together since they met at the Institute for Young Blind People in Bamako, Mali¹s capital, three decades ago.
Now if Seu Jorge's "America Brasil" (No. 41 on the list) could find an American distributor, the world would be a better place.