During early April, Sierra Leone’s Refugee All-Stars – one of Africa’s best-known bands to make a successful go in the United States – embarked on a tour of the country, which was booked through the summer.

Just weeks after they departed, however, the Ebola virus started sweeping through and ravishing West Africa. Unable to extend their U.S. visas due to a stipulation, the management of the band hurriedly booked more dates for the group, hitting the college circuit, the red states, the festivals – almost any venue that would take them, including places completely unfamiliar with world music.

“They want to stay as long as they can right now,” said All-Stars’ manager Eric Herman in a phone interview in early September. “We’ve played in nearly every market since spring and we’re looking for more. We want to keep them here and safe.”

American rock bands face such threats as plane and tour bus crashes, drug overdoses, violent fans and just the regular hazards of the rock n’ roll lifestyle. African bands deal with these and a vast, deadly array of others. There are civil wars, corruption, government instability, disease epidemics, food shortages — and like the All-Stars, refugee camps.

But as an African music insurgency escalates in the states – reaching beyond the bourgeoisie world music aficionados and the latest finds of Sting, Paul Simon and Peter Gabriel – bands such as the blind, “Afro-blues” duo Amadou and Mariam from Mali, Tuareg guitarist Bombino from Niger and the All-Stars have started to play the stages from the Hollywood Bowl to Bonaroo. They have brought with them a coterie of booking agents, record label execs and music managers – some from Africa, some from the states – all of whom keep them out of harm’s way and help them navigate the perils of a foreign market.

“The artists that are the most successful are the ones that are able to reach the widest audience – outside of the traditional African music market – and that will resonate with audiences that might not consider themselves fans of African music,” said Jacob Edgar, the founder of Cumbancha, a record label, booking agent and publisher of world music. “Artists that can appeal to different geographical regions and have something that transcends their story, as well as a great stage presence, are the ones to succeed in the American music scene.”

But in addition to a presence, they have to have their heads together as professional musicians, Edgar said. “There are so many amazing and wonderful musicians in Africa, but if there not a partnership – or too much work to prepare them – their careers won’t take off in other countries.”

Omara “Bombino” Moctar – one of the myriad talented African musicians on the continent, but one of few to effectively cross the Atlantic – has Edgar’s triumvirate of characteristics that overstep the barriers thrown up by skeptical Western tastemakers. Born a nomadic Tuareg and raised on an encampment about 60 miles northeast of Agadez – the largest city in Northern Niger – Bombino was discovered by filmmaker Ron Wyman who had begun filming a documentary about the Tuareg.

After enduring and escaping several Tuareg rebellions, Bombino landed in Libya at the age of 12 with a guitar given to him by his grandfather. He fell in with local musicians who helped him master the guitar through music videos of Jimi Hendrix and Mark Knopfler. Upon returning to Niger in his late teens, he backed several bands before going solo after two band mates from a group called Tidawt were killed in another insurrection.

Enchanted by a tape of Bombino’s music he found, Wyman spent a year tracking him to Burkina Faso, then brought him to the U.S. to record his first album, Agadez, on Cumbancha Records.

“Bombino went from being an unknown to being a cross-over because he has a lot of things going for him: a sound that appeals to a wide range of people whether into rock, or psychedelic, or world; a hipness to him that some African musicians lack in people’s minds; and endorsements,” Edgar said. While in the states, Bombino befriended Dan Auerbach, the Black Keys’ guitarist and vocalist who produced his second album and “helped catapult Bombino into a different stratosphere,” Edgar said.