Mariam soon found herself following in the footsteps of her music idols. By the age of six, she was already performing at local weddings and baptism parties. Growing up surrounded by music and the support and affection of a loving father, Mariam developed a strong sense of self-confidence. In 1973, the budding young singer, who had lost her sight at the age of five, enrolled at Bamako's Institute for the Young Blind which opened that same year. Mariam was one of the Institute's first pupils and, besides following lessons in Braille, she also showed her own teaching skills, giving singing and dance classes to other students.

Amadou Bagayoko was also born in Bamako, on 24 October 1954. He revealed his musical talent as a toddler, mastering a variety of percussion instruments at the tender age of two. Amadou soon branched out in other directions too, learning to play the harmonica and the flute when he was ten. But the instrument that really grabbed his attention was his uncle's guitar and, as a young teenager growing up on a healthy diet of Jimi Hendrix, Led Zeppelin, John Lee Hooker and Eric Clapton, Amadou vowed he would become a guitar hero himself one day. Besides listening to international rock greats, Amadou also opened his ears to Cuban music and local homegrown talent from Mali.

Amadou's career began in earnest in 1968 when he started performing with a variety of different groups such as Mali's National Orchestra and the Niarela and Koutiala orchestras. Between 1974 and 1980, Amadou also honed his musical skills playing with Les Ambassadeurs du Motel (one of the leading groups to emerge from the Malian music scene which included Salif Keïta in its ranks). Working with Les Ambassadeurs gave Amadou the chance to travel and the young musician soon found himself on tour, playing dates in France, Ivory Coast, Guinea Conakry and Haute-Volta (now Burkina Faso). Meanwhile, Amadou, who had gone blind during his teens as a result of a congenital cataract, enrolled at Bamako's Institute for the Young Blind in 1975. He met Mariam soon afterwards and, brought together by a mutual passion for music, the young couple fell in love.

Pupils at Bamako's Institute for the Young Blind were encouraged to express themselves through music and the Institute formed its own group in 1976, appointing Amadou as its director. In 1977, the Institute also created its own orchestra in which Mariam excelled as lead singer. The two groups performed numerous concerts outside the Institute and organised awareness-raising campaigns around the issue of blindness. In 1980, Amadou and Mariam decided to team up and form their own duo – both in real life and on stage! The couple got married that year and went on to perform their first concert together, getting an enthusiastic reception when they appeared at Bobo Dioulasso Stadium.

Meanwhile, Amadou found himself in great demand. After being appointed bandleader of Miriya (an orchestra of blind musicians created in 1981), he was promoted to the position of technical director of the Institute for the Young Blind's artistic troupe. In this role, he was called upon to manage the Institute's theatre company, its instrumental ensemble and its modern orchestra. In 1981, he was also elected as secretary general of the AMPSA (the Malian Association for the Social Promotion of the Blind). Meanwhile, his own solo career continued to go from strength to strength. In 1982, Amadou triumphed at RFI's "Découvertes" (new talent) contest and he also won the ACCT award.

Despite their busy family life (Amadou and Mariam went on to have three children together, one of whom has become a hip-hop musician), the duo began to make a name for themselves on the national music scene. In 1985, the duo's fame spread beyond Mali when they embarked on a three-month tour of Burkina Faso. Given the limited recording possibilities back home in Mali, the couple decided to move to Ivory Coast in 1986. This proved to be an excellent career move for they met the Nigerian producer Maïkano in Abidjan and ended up going into the studio there in December 1988. These first recording sessions resulted in the release of two cassettes (simply entitled "Volume 1" and "Volume 2") in March 1989.

Amadou and Mariam enjoyed increasing success from this point on. And the duo, who became known as "the blind couple from Mali", soon found themselves in great demand on the live circuit. In December 1989, they brought the house down at a grand gala in Abidjan, where they appeared on the same bill as Stevie Wonder and Kool and the Gang. The following year, Amadou and Mariam took to the stage with thirty other singers and musicians for a special tribute concert to Fulgence Kassy (the famous Ivorian TV presenter who hosted the show "Première Chance"). In February 1990, Amadou and Mariam went back into the studio with their producer Maïkano and recorded what would become their follow-up cassette albums, "Volume 3" and "Volume 4."

The cassettes were released in 1991 and, later that same year, Amadou and Mariam returned to Mali, via Burkina Faso, to perform a major tour. In 1993, the couple were finally able to record their first cassette album for the Malian market (which, like their others, was produced by Maïkano). By this point in their career, Amadou and Mariam could pride themselves on being a big hit in Africa and with African communities in Europe. But the couple still had dreams of taking their career further abroad. At the end of 1994, they were invited to Paris to perform and record. But, unfortunately, the cassette album they recorded in Paris never saw the light of day in Europe.

Amadou and Mariam returned to France in 1997, however, and recorded their first CD album distributed in Europe in 1998. The album, entitled "Sou Ni Tilé" (Night and Day), which included a number of the duo's early songs, spawned the single "Mon amour, ma chérie" which helped rocket them to overnight fame in France. Meanwhile, in December 1997, Amadou and Mariam made an impact on the live scene, appearing at the Transmusicales festival in Rennes. Shortly afterwards, the CD "Se Te Djon Ye", a compilation of the duo's old recordings, was released. This was followed by a new album, "The Ni Mousso" (Man and Woman) in 1999.

Amadou and Mariam's career soon took off on the international scene, too. The "blind couple from Mali" were invited to appear at the International Music Festival in Louisiana and they also played a series of concerts in Germany. In 2001, they performed at the Eurockéennes festival in France. Then, in 2002, Amadou and Mariam were back in the music spotlight with the release of their album "Wati", which featured a host of prestigious guest stars such as their compatriot Cheick Tidiane Seck, Jean-Philippe Rykiel and Sergent Garcia. Later that same year, the husband-and-wife team embarked upon a hectic live schedule, performing concerts all the way from Los Angeles to Montreux and the "Musiques Métisses" festival in Angoulême. In 2003, Amadou and Mariam flew back to Mali for another tour.

Amadou and Mariam's career got another major boost when they were contacted by Manu Chao, who had discovered their music listening to his car radio one day. Bowled over by what he heard, Chao got the duo over to Paris in September 2003 and began working on material for a new album with them. Amadou and Mariam finished recording this new album in Mali in April 2004 after they had performed at the Festival in the Desert there at the beginning of the year. The album, "Dimanche à Bamako", which featured a fusion of Amadou and Mariam's distinctive African style and Manu Chao's influence, was released in October 2004. It proved instrumental in bringing the duo's music to the attention of a wider public.

Amadou and Mariam, who still write their songs in their native Bambara (even if this means translating them later), like to work independently and then get together at the end of the day and add modifications to each other's material. This spirit of fusion and collaboration is much in evidence on their albums where they have broadened their musical horizons, working with artists from other cultures as well as their own.        

"Dimanche à Bamako" also won important critical recognition, scooping the trophy for ‘best world album of the year’ at the Victoires de la Musique Awards on 5 March 2005. The commercial success of the album led to Amadou and Mariam assuring a packed tour schedule until October, filling major concert venues, mostly in France. On 24 March and 17 May 2005, the Malian duo played two sold-out concerts at La Cigale, in Paris.

April 2005 saw the first edition of the Paris-Bamako festival, staged by three French organisers at Mali’s Institute for the Young Blind. Amadou and Mariam, who had met at the Institute almost thirty years before, were invited to act as patrons on this occasion. And, in fact, the festival organisers could hardly have found anyone better to represent the cause as the profits from Paris-Bamako contributed to the cost of renovating the Institute and building new infrastructure. The Malian duo were joined on stage by a host of international stars and local music fans turned out to the event in force.

After winning a nomination for the prestigious Prix Constantin, Amadou and Mariam earned their first platinum disc after sales of "Dimanche à Bamako" topped the 300,000 mark. The French minister of Culture and Communications, Renaud Donnedieu de Vabres, presented the Malian duo with the disc after a memorable concert at L'Olympia, in Paris, on 26 October 2005.

Meanwhile, Amadou and Mariam’s fame continued to spread abroad. The well-known British broadsheet The Observer even included "Dimanche à Bamako" in its list of the Top 20 albums of 2005. And the couple’s increasing collection of awards and distinctions opened the doors of more and more venues to them. Before long, the duo had carved out their own place on the international scene. Amadou and Mariam’s popularity also led to a series of collaborations with other artists. And in 2005 Fred Chichin, from the French group Les Rita Mitsouko, remixed their song "Coulibaly."

November 2005 saw the release of a DVD and a live album, "Live à la Goutte d'Or." Then, at the beginning of January 2006, the Malian artist DJ Mo remixed a number of Amadou and Mariam tracks. In February and March 2006, Amadou and Mariam went on to take part in the Africa Soul Rebel Tour, together with Souad Massi and Emmanuel Jal, playing an extensive series of dates across the U.K. They then embarked upon a series of international tours (which included dates across Europe, Australia, Canada and the U.S.) and organised various collaborations with other artists.

On 26 June 2007, Amadou and Mariam were involved in the "Africa Express" project, masterminded by British musician and Blur frontman Damon Albarn. The project got together an impressive line-up of international stars (including Rachid Taha, K'Naan, Tony Allen, Fat Boy Slim, and the Tuareg group Tinariwen) to play at the Glastonbury festival in the U.K.

On 13 July 2007, Amadou and Mariam brought the house down when they performed at the giant ‘bal populaire’ organised on the Place de la Bastille by the Mairie de Paris and RFI as part of the Bastille Day celebrations. A few days later, the duo supported American disco-rock stars The Scissor Sisters at U.K. dates in London and Manchester (26 July - 1 August).

August 2007