English: Amadou Bagayoko and Mariam Doumbia met in Mali and started making music together. Mariam had grown up singing at weddings and traditional festivals while the teenager Amadou had cut his teeth as a guitarist in Les Ambassadeurs, one of West Africa's hottest and most legendary bands. Both are blind and they met in 1977 at the Institute for the Blind in Bamako, where they were both studying Braille. They performed together in the institute's Eclipse Orchestra. They married in 1980, the same year they played their first official concert together as a duo.

Frustrated by the lack of opportunities in Mali, in 1986 they moved to Abidjan, the capital of neighbouring Côte d'Ivoire, where they made their first recordings.

Since the release of their highly rated album ‘Dimanche à Bamako’, Amadou and Mariam's lives have changed dramatically as they have made the transition from world music cult heroes to full-blown pop stars. Their album has become the most celebrated African record since Youssou N'Dour's ‘Seven Seconds’ more than a decade ago.