Once a decade, it seems, a record emerges from the dense and vibrant undergrowth of the world music scene to achieve mass popular success. Back in the 1980s it was the Gypsy Kings. In the 1990s it was Buena Vista Social Club. And now it's the turn of the West African duo, Amadou and Mariam.
Released in France in November 2004, their Manu Chao produced album Dimanche a Bamako had risen by last summer to number two in the French charts, leaving the likes of James Blunt, Coldplay, Green Day and Mariah Carey all trailing in its wake - the highest chart-placing ever achieved by an African record anywhere in Europe.
Effortlessly funky yet full of insanely catchy tunes and with the African core of Amadou's stinging, snaking guitar lines and Mariam's hypnotically soulful voice tweaked with touches of reggae, jazz, blues and rock, Dimanche a Bamako has now sold close to 500,000 copies around the world and is still gaining momentum.
The Evening Standard dubbed Amadou & Mariam "Africa's funkiest band." The Observer called their music "the fizziest Afro-pop blues ever bottled". Yet perhaps the most telling comment of all came in The Guardian. "Just occasionally," the paper observed, "the right people get the break they deserve."