Dakar’s Finest Son – Youssou N’Dour

By Monsieur Polk

He has played it, sang it, acted it and basically lives it, an epic story. We are talking about the Senegalese modern day Griot (singing story teller) Youssou N’Dour, who is known primarily as a singer, but has also acted in two critically acclaimed film productions, owns a recording studio as well as a record company, and is also the owner of a Senegalese (L’Observateur) newspaper amongst other personal achievements in his life.

N’Dour was born 51 years ago in Dakar, Senegal, and has been touring for nearly thirty years off and on. In March 2011 a massive crowd that constituted a sizable chunk of over thirty thousand attendees of the sold out 12^th Cape Town International Jazz Festival had a chance to see the great man in action on the Kippies stage. Upon commencement of his diverse set, N’Dour connected immediately with the crowd and continued to take them back to Dakar (and Kingston!) for hours of musical magic and frankly life changing artistry. The “talking drum” of Senegal got a great work out as well through Assane Thiam’s spicing up of an already hot performance and the energetic and at times almost ritualistic dancing by Pape Moussa Sonko, created an atmosphere akin to a ceremony of sorts. A Youssou N’Dour performance is an experience to say the least… but an experience that left nearly every one in the audience in a dazed state. “Yoh! But Youssou N’Dour was just… Eish, no seriously, that was…” is what one would hear as people lacked the words to sum up what had just taken place.

Youssou N’Dour has had an interesting trajectory in life steeped in music with the performer first trying out live performance in 1971 at age 12 back in Dakar. By 1979 N’Dour had formed a band called Etoile de Dakar (now called Super Etoile) and was engaged in transforming the local Mbalax music. The modern day Girot helped modernise Mbalax music through the fusion of modern instruments and world sounds such as Afro Cuban and Latin sounds with the traditional percussion sounds used by Griots as well as praise singing rhythms. This successful experimentation positioned N’Dour as the “King of Mbalax” but was only a trend that still persists to this day and has seen N’Dour produce songs with Sweden’s Neneh Cherry on the huge hit ‘7 Seconds’; New York rapper Cannibus on ‘How Long’; Haitian super musician Wyclef Jean, Peter Gabriel, Sting, Tracy Chapman and the list just goes on. Influences ranging from the funkster Prince, James Brown, Sufi religious chants, Jazz and other musical styles have seen the musician reinterpreted some of his compositions in a jazz style or as is the subject of his current album ‘Dakar-Kingston’, a reggae style.

N’Dour’s Mbalax music has given African music a global impact and relevance, earning him a 2005 Grammy Award for best contemporary world music album for the ‘Egypt’ album. Outside of music N’Dour has also been recognised as a great humanitarian who has been appointed goodwill ambassador for the UN’s FAO (Food and Agriculture Organisation) worked with UNICEF on Project Joko which sought to open up internet cafés all over Africa to encourage communication amongst Senegalese communities globally.

Standing on a stage in Cape Town, looking down at one of the biggest crowds at the music festival an unassuming man radiates a powerful aura which turns him into something else when he lets the music take him and his audience to new heights, regardless of the fact that most people in the audience do not speak French, and almost none speak Wolof. Unfortunately an opportunity to see the man up close and personal never materialised as he never made the press conference. The reasons for his non appearance varied from he is AWOL; he was unwell; or he was extremely annoyed that a Senegalese chef was not available to cook for him… either way after a diverse festival experience that may have included seeing Best New Artist Grammy winner the Jazz bassist, Esperanza Spalding, jamming to good time live house music by Tortured Soul, been taken back to the good old days by Cape Town’s super old school DJ The Real Rozzano; a Youssou N’Dour performance pressed the reset button on the entire weekend’s musical experience and brings you back home to Africa, a fitting finale to Africa’s Grandest Gathering 2011.