West Africa's musical heartbeat on the Niger
Bamako is one of Africa's fastest-growing cities and its most vibrant musical capitals — the birthplace of the genre now known as Malian blues, where Toumani Diabaté's kora and Ali Farka Touré's guitar fused to create some of the most celebrated world music of the 20th century. The Grand Marché overflows with bogolan mudcloth, the Niger River terrace bars play live music every night, and the Artisans' Market sells Tuareg leatherwork and bronze castings that rival anything in West Africa.
Bamako takes its name from the Bambara for 'crocodile back' — the rocks in the Niger resembled a basking crocodile to the Bambara people who settled here in the 16th century. The area was successively part of the Mali Empire (13th–16th century) and the Songhai Empire before French colonial forces occupied it in 1880, making it the capital of French Sudan. After independence in 1960 it became the capital of the Republic of Mali. Its population has grown from 100,000 in 1960 to over 4 million today.