I thought I saw Salif Keita on Sunday at the Folklife Festival—how many albino Malian men are walking around the Mall this week, after all? Well, at least two. The man I saw on Sunday had a small entourage, and spoke French with some of the festival musicians, and smiled kindly at me as he walked by.

But the man on Sunday was not the man I saw tonight, who, like the first man, had a small entourage, as well as one Malian paparazzo with a camcorder calling "Salif! Salif!" As I hopped over puddles in front of the food tent, I nearly bumped into the real Salif Keita, the "Golden Voice of Africa," a pale man no taller than me, who beamed as he strode across the soggy Mall in his glossy purple boubou, nestled in a small flock of bandmates, toward the Timbuktu Stage where he would perform a strong and lively but all-too-short show.