‘Africa is not a country’ is the title of a very interesting and enjoyable book that I'm reading. 
The most colourful continent in the world, and for this very reason labelled ‘black’ by the western world, not only has different places, climates, peoples, languages, traditions, habits and customs, but is also described in a thousand ways, depending on the location and the experiences of the writer. It will be impossible for anyone to claim to know Africa, at least in a direct, present way. 
To remedy this, which is true all over the world, fortunately there is a lot to read. But also to listen to, especially with regards to West Africa, the true cradle of music, almost as much as the East is for humanity.
For this I will be eternally grateful to a blind artist who told me about Mali, about the village festivals, about the vibrant capital Bamako, but also about the desert where ‘wild trucks’ raise sand and change the landscape from nothing to nothing, about corrupt politicians whose only interest is going to the seaside, about love and the desire to escape from the ghettos. His name was Amadou, and he passed away a few days ago at the age of 70. In a school for the blind in Bamako, while studying music, he met another soul with darkness in her eyes but with the colours and illumination of sounds and melodies in her mind and voice. Her name is Mariam and after 40 years together, she is now alone.
If you too love to lose yourself in a foreign land, even through music, listen to ‘Dimanche a Bamako’, their 2004 album. Pure beauty, like that which can be found not only in Bamako, taking a taxi, walking past street food stalls, dancing with poverty so as not to be stabbed by it, caressing death to make it feel alive. And singing a song to tell all this. 
Thank you Amadou!