If you can at all, check this out. Should be inspirational! AMADOU & MARIAM FIRST IRISH DATE TOMORROW, MONDAY SEPTEMBER 26TH *NOW AT THE VILLAGE, DUBLIN *Moved up from Whelans due to popular demand. NEW 'COULIBALY' Single OUT NOW FEATURING REMIXES FROM ASHLEY BEEDLE (`Ashley Beedle's Afrikanz On Marz') AND FRED CHICHIN. Catch the mighty Amadou & Mariam Live for their Irish debut at The Village tomorrow night, Monday September 26th. Doors: 7.30pm Limited tickets: 20 euro from Road Records, Ticketmaster and The WaV Ticketbox (1890 32000 7 at Whelans. - THE INDEPENDENT 1/8/05 "Sunday was the debut of the hotly anticipated blind Malian couple Amadou & Mariam, who played a funky set of Malian rock 'n' roll and provided one of the most exciting and electrifying moments of the festival. "Beside Amadou's phenomenal guitar playing, his mostly French band provided a tight background to the blind couple's compositions" - Phil Meadley THE EVENING STANDARD 1/8/05 "We can only imagine how the Malian duo Amadou & Mariam, who played Womad yesterday afternoon, would have blown away the crowed at Hyde Park (Live . They are hot property since their recent album with Manu Chao and are Africa's funkiest band" - Simon Broughton BBC RADIO 3, ANDY KERSHAW live broadcast of 'Coulibaly' and 'Chante Chante' 31/07/05 "The big African music success story of this year. They've sold a huge number of CDs in the last year, enough to make Bob Geldof speechless" Listen online: AMADOU & MARIAM NEW SINGLE AS PRELUDE TO UK & IRELAND TOUR African stars Amadou & Mariam have just released the new single, `Coulibaly'. The tune is taken from the duo's groundbreaking album `Dimanche à Bamako', which is currently number three in the French national chart. The single features the original album version of `Coulibaly' - produced by the celebrated French/Latin artist Manu Chao - together with two special club mixes, the first by French artist Fred Chichin and the other by Ashley Beedle. The Chichin mix was recently previewed on the Warchild charity's download website warchildmusic.com, where it was picked up by BBC Radio 1 presenter Zane Lowe who claimed it was "the sleeper hit of the summer". The single's other mix is credited as `Ashley Beedle's Afrikanz On Marz' - Beedle is one of the UK's most prolific producers and remixers, a reputation established through a whole range of projects over the past decade, most recently including X- Press 2. `Coulibaly' will be available on both CD and 12-inch vinyl and its release comes as the prelude to Amadou & Mariam's first UK tour + Dublin. `Dimanche à Bamako' was released in the UK on 6th June. The album met with extraordinary critical applause which was quickly underlined by the acclaim Amadou & Mariam received for their sell-out UK debut headlining show in London that same week. The duo also triumphed at the WOMAD Festival in Reading earlier this month, a performance by "Africa's funkiest band" according to the Evening Standard. The duo's latest successes add an extra dimension to the reputation they have long since acquired in their native Mali and throughout West Africa. Amadou Bagayoko, for instance, cut his musical teeth playing guitar in the Ambassadeurs du Motel de Bamako, one of the hottest bands in West Africa during the Seventies. His musical partnership with wife Mariam Doumbia ignited with a series of cassette albums recorded in the Côte d'Ivoire during the late-Eighties and early-Nineties. Those albums brought them fame right across the African continent. Amadou & Mariam also found a European home in Paris. From 1998 they toured heavily throughout France, at the same time releasing three major label albums that enhanced their reputations throughout the world. The duo came to the attention of Manu Chao, the legendary artist whose 1998 `Clandestino' album had proved to be a landmark of Latin music. Chao agreed to produce Amadou & Mariam's next album, resulting in `Dimanche à Bamako', which was released in France at the end of last year.