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Apr 12, 2012Folila is great music. Period.
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Apr 2, 2012More selective souls may find themselves reaching for the fast-forward button, as perhaps the original plan would have yielded a more cohesive whole.
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Apr 10, 2012This is thrilling, catchy and complex music that satisfies even if you haven't a clue what they're singing about.
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Apr 2, 2012Folila's best moments do inadvertently serve as a reminder of how good Amadou & Mariam are without the hired help.
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Apr 4, 2012If you are willing to be patient it offers more surprises than you'd expect, flourishing on repeated plays.
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Apr 4, 2012Though they sing in different languages, the tongue of teamwork makes for universal understanding.
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Apr 2, 2012This isn't poppier than anything they've done over the past decade or so, but few individual songs stick out like good pop songs should.
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May 22, 2012This never takes off the way Welcome to Mali did. But it does hang in there, and rewards attention.
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Apr 10, 2012As often as not here Amadou & Mariam seem crowded out of their own music.
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MojoApr 25, 2012There is much here to enjoy. [May 2012, p.93]
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Apr 4, 2012With their eclectic cocktail of rock, pop, blues, jazz, soul, funk and traditional African music, these grandparents can still knock out an irresistible groove to match the best, but perhaps they need to be reminded that they should do it alone a little more often.
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Apr 2, 2012A highlight comes in 'Sans Toi', an unassuming love song which proves that, stripped of special guests, it's their songwriting that brought Amadou and Mariam this far.
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May 9, 2012Ultimately, Folila fits right into that legacy, while managing to expand it just a little further.
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Apr 4, 2012For those who have never heard Amadou & Mariam's music, Folila may be a perfect place to start exploring.
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Apr 2, 2012Even if Folila is less surprising than the two albums that came before it, it still makes me look forward to seeing where they'll take this fusion next.
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Apr 26, 2012The album works brilliantly far more often than not.
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Q MagazineApr 13, 2012In accommodating all those guests Mariam too often has to take a back seat, so destroying much of the couple's special chemistry, the very thing that sets them apart. [May 2012, p.90]
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Jun 4, 2012The result is cultural exchange with ears pricked high.
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Apr 2, 2012While the album does act as an introduction to the group for beginners and a primer on the complicated rhythms of African pop, it does so mostly by engraining familiar artists and concepts within their style, a process which foments an expansion of their sound rather than watering it down.
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May 1, 2012Amadou and Mariam were wise to forgo a full-on return-to-roots move: They're no kind of traditionalists, let alone folkies, and if their songs lovingly reimagine Bamako, cosmopolitan Paris is their spiritual, as well as their physical, home.
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Apr 2, 2012Taken together, the results demonstrate how adeptly Amadou & Mariam straddle both local and global, with a truly "world" music that deserves mainstream chart success rather than niche appreciation.
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Apr 2, 2012Folila, packed with western friends, mixes the inspired and mundane.
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Apr 2, 2012Mixing up elements of rock, pop, blues, jazz, soul and funk, each song finds its way into a supple groove and just bounces around there as though Amadou's guitar strings and Mariam's vocal chords were made of musical elastic.
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UncutApr 4, 2012Folila is an unhappy attempt to amalgamate two records, one that mostly swamps their playful sound with noisy overlays. [May 2012, p.65]