Amadou and Mariam
Amadou - Mariam and music, we are a double love story, because that’s how we found each other - through music. I was already a musician, and so was Mariam, she was a singer. So it was music that brought us together.
Music is a passion, it’s our life, and it’s a love story too…
Our music is Mali Bambara music - it’s inspired by n’goni lute music. And our influences are blues and rock. So it’s these three elements that we have mixed together and which have made us successful.
It’s hard to get good recording facilities in Africa, and that makes it difficult for us as song-writers, especially to get established in the music marketplace. That and, above all, the problem of getting good distribution.
Our last album has been pirated – pirate copies have already been seen in Mali. In Europe, I think it’s better – apart, of course, from the Internet …people download music, they listen to our music but without buying the CD. So that really puts a brake on production and on creativity.
Piracy can damage our chance of succeeding - but it’s not just that; it affects everybody. It’s a deplorable phenomomen. It kills creativity, it kills culture, it kills the creators.
We tell young people who are copying and downloading music illegally that they are killing the music. If you really like an artist, and you want him to go on making the music you enjoy, well then, why don’t you pay for his CD so that he can make a living? We can’t survive just on what we are paid for giving concerts – there have to be rights too. It’s copyright that allows the artist to earn his living, and to keep on working.
I think that the artists, the authorities, everybody who’s involved, they should all get together to try to find a solution which can put a stop to this piracy which is… eating us away.
What I myself and Mariam would most wish for, apart of course from plenty of success, … is that Malian music should become known as universal music – not just folk music, but music that everybody everywhere can appreciate, can listen to and can dance to.
