Buraka Son Sistema, an Angolan and Portuguese act, in October at Santos Party House in New York. From left, Rui Pit, known as DJ Riot; João Barbosa, known as Lil’ John; and the guest Kalaf ngelo.
“Yes, yes,” she exclaimed, swaying her head and snapping her fingers as she listened to the music. “Very good.”
The song she heard was an unofficial remix of “Sabali,” the ethereal electro-pop number that leads off Welcome to Mali. Written with the British musician Damon Albarn of the poppy hip-hop outfit Gorillaz, the original processes Ms. Doumbia’s earthy alto with AutoTune, the omnipresent effects software used by T-Pain and Kanye West, among other international acts. The remix, which adds a charmingly lazy duet vocal by the Brooklyn musician Theophilus London, is from an online mixtape that is available free at myspace.com/londonwave.
“All of our albums have been remixed in some way, so we are used to it,” Mr. Bagayoko, 54, said in French through a translator. Like his wife, he appears younger than his years, and he looked sharp in a dark paisley shirt and sports jacket. “It’s an honor to be chosen by other artists,” he said. “And it helps bring the music to a larger audience.”
Mr. Bagayoko and Ms. Doumbia, known across Africa as the Blind Couple of Mali, are extremely pragmatic about their art — one reason why, at the moment, they are among the world’s most renowned African musical acts. They released cassettes and CDs through the 1990s and early ’00s, mixing gentle Malian pop with blues and other international flavors.
Their breakthrough came in 2005 with Dimanche à Bamako, a modern-sounding collaboration with the fusion-minded European producer and artist Manu Chao. A pop hit in France, it turned up on numerous year-end best-of lists in the United States and earned them a Grammy nomination; it has sold more than 600,000 copies worldwide, impressive numbers for African music.
Welcome to Mali was released in Europe late last year to great acclaim. The London Observer predicted it “will be appreciated by millions; not as ‘world music’ but as the product of an authentically global pop phenomenon.” The record will be out in the United States on Tuesday.
