The city has become a cultural hothouse , in which singers and instrumentalists from Mali 's myriad tribes -- the Tuaregs of the Sahara , the Sorhai of Timbuktu , the Malinkes from the border region south of Bamako , the Dogon cliff dwellers , the Wassalous near the Ivory Coast , the Peuls of central Mali -- mix and fertilize one another 's art . ''