The 333 Best Pop Songs of the 2000s: #206

#206: "Senegal Fast Food" (2004) - Amadou & Mariam

Next, on our journey around the globe, we travel north-northwest from South Africa to the Western African desert country of Mali, where we find the blind couple Amadou and Mariam playing Malian blues their way. Although they began their professional careers playing Malian blues in a somewhat traditional fashion, they've--since the beginning of this decade--begun to embrace the sounds of other cultures--Egyptian flutes, Caribbean and South American horns, percussion from all over the place, and Western guitar styles can all be found on Amadou & Mariam albums from the past nine years, the multicultural instruments enhancing their sound without robbing it of its identity. Amadou & Mariam are perhaps Africa's--the continent's--most progressive and open-minded band, yet their sounds still essentially remained theirs. Or it did until Manu Chao came along.

Chau--a superstar everywhere except America and (parts of) Canada--came over to visit in 2003, volunteered to take out the couple's trash as well as produce their album, and made himself quite at home, redecorating the house to reflect his tastes, inviting his own company over, ceding control only when he had to go to the john during the chorus, at which point Amadou and Mariam showed their guests the true soul of their abode underneath all the slick new wallpaper. The toilet then flushed (though it sounded like a harmonica), and out stepped Chao, ready to get the party started again. He stepped to where A & M were standing, ripped off a small section of wallpaper, handed it to them, and pointed at the place where the old met the new, and all the guests noticed marveled at the seeming lack of seams; they couldn't tell where the wallpaper started and where the rip occurred. The styles seemed to converge perfectly (if maybe a bit too perfectly), and A & M smiled at this new creation based around their original design, and they were even further delighted when Chao told everyone it was A & M's idea to begin with. Perhaps Chao wasn't such the scoundrel. Perhaps.