The taxi driver swore he knew where our subject lived but denied it was in Doulibogou. "No! He has moved!"

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he said emphatically, waving his cigarette stub.

"Maybe you are thinking of someone else?" asked Alberto Nicheli gently.

"No! There is only one Salifu Keita! There is another footballer in Nigeria with the same name, but Mali's Salifu Keita is the only Salifu Keita!"

We weren't in search of a soccer star, however. We were in search of a musician, Salif Keita. His album Soro is a classic on the "world beat" scene, and his energetic blending of African instruments with South American rhythms and techno-pop styling has elevated his status to a global level. Now, with a new album on the shelves, his record label, Mango, was more than happy to give two Internet reporters the chance to publicize Salif on the Web.

But first we had to convince our smoldering chauffeur that we weren't interested in the World Cup. Our turf was world beat. He grudgingly drove down the rutted roads of Bamako's outskirts, leaving us with the lingering sense he was detouring past Salifu's house just to spite us. When he drove into a four-meter-wide pool of indeterminate depth, our protests became more audible.

"Are you sure we're going to Salif Keita's?"

"J'espère," he whispered. We hoped so too, but only when we spotted a fleet of new cars outside a colorful villa did we breathe freely.

An armed guard escorted us in, and we shook hands with Salif Keita. Wearing an orange satin shirt, black leather pants, and a mirror talisman around his neck, Salif was clearly the musician of the house. But his handshake was gentle, his demeanor quietly welcoming, and his gaze as inviting as the gaze of a black albino can be. He led us out to the veranda, went inside for a baseball cap to cover the tight orange curls of his hair, then joined us.

As we explained our purpose, Salif demonstrated his first, but far from last, burst of enthusiasm. "The Internet is very interesting," he agreed in his soft accented voice, before lapsing into French. "I think there is nothing better than the Internet today," Alberto translated. "It is not expensive, and most communication has become so expensive. Before, the only way of communication was television, telephone,

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and fax. The Internet is all three things together, and it's faster and cheaper. I think the Internet is not only made for the rich people but is made for everybody, poor people and rich people. The Internet is the real image of peace."

Such an endorsement was quite unexpected, even though we'd heard Salif had set up an e-mail account at MaliNet just a few days earlier. The perspective itself was global, like his music, and it struck me that music, too, is an instrument of peace. Over the next hour, we learned how this outcast albino—albeit a member of the royal clan of Keita, supposedly descended from the fourteenth-century founder of the Kingdom of Mali—came to such an insight and to such success.

"It was a surprise for me too," Salif said in answer to a query about his life's course. "I was supposed to be a teacher, but I was not. And now I am a musician, but I am not that either. I am still waiting to find out what I can do."

It is true Salif came from a well-to-do family, and his intelligence made him a natural for schooling, where he earned the credentials to teach. But after a few months on the job he was fired—not because he was incapable, but because the French supervisors told him he was frightening the children. His melanin deficiency, though it made him lighter than most of the white people who colonized his country, was not acceptable to them. Suddenly he had nothing to do. It was almost an accident that music came his way.

"When I was thrown out of school," he said with heartfelt emotion, "I had nothing. I had no one to talk to, no one to go to for help. I spent three years at the market, living there, sleeping there. I had no home. And out of that suffering I found change. Now I am like a boat in a river, and the current takes me where it will go. I only have the faith to go with it."

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The school of suffering Salif endured in the market became fodder for his music, and the river he has run in the intervening 26 years has brought him a home in Paris and worldwide appreciation for his music. For the past decade Salif has lived outside Mali, only recently returning to this modest house outside Bamako. And despite the durable traditions of music that he draws upon, it is not traditional music that he plays. "I use tradition in music, but I use technology too," he pointed out.

Basking in his hospitality, I asked the obvious question—whether he likes performing. "I love performing. It is like talking to 600 people at the same time or 10,000—however many." We asked him if he could pick up the old acoustic guitar leaning against the sofa.. "I just want to take a photo," assuaged Rocco. "You don't have to play it."

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But Salif Keita had a guitar in hand, and once his fingers began to glide over the fingerboard, they would not stop. Glissades of notes cascaded around him, and his eyes closed and opened again, as if checking the landscape within against the surroundings without. Then he began to sing, his elastic tenor weaving a spell. The past, his song seemed to say, is gone, and we didn't have a choice; but now it is today, and we do.

"That is from my new album," he said when he finished. There may indeed be many Keitas in Mali, but there is only one Salif Keita.

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