National Geographic Music (National Geographic)

With the end of summer closing in fast, we've been reflecting on the big winners and losers of this summer's concert season, and few world music artists made a bigger score than Malian roots rockers Amadou & Mariam.

The husband-and-wife duo generated lots of love from the American press opening for multiplatinum Brit-rockers Coldplay on their sold out North American summer tour, and turned lots of new fans on to the amazing sounds of contemporary Africa. Amadou & Mariam topped off this lovefest with a profile on CNN's African Voices program, while their album Welcome to Mali, released earlier this Spring on Nonesuch records, came in at number six on SPIN magazine's list of The 20 Best Albums of 2009 ... So Far.

Of course, we've loved Amadou & Mariam since before Manu Chao produced their groundbreaking 2005 crossover record, Diamanche a Bamako - but we're not the jealous types, so it's all good. In fact, we hope that Amadou and Mariam's tour with Coldplay opens up a whole new world of success for them-nobody deserves it more.

In the meantime, we salute "The Blind Couple Of Mali" with the director's cut of their animated video "Masiteladi".