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There’s No Pleasing All of the People All of the Time

Buried in Youssou N’Dour’s worldwide success is a musical conundrum. Can mbalax music be successfully exported? Do its complex polyrhythms make it too difficult for anyone to dance to other than the Senegalese? Youssou himself would argue that mbalax contains reggae and jazz and every kind of music, or perhaps they all contain mbalax! Habib Faye claimed in one of our conversations that the Senegalese style is compatible with any music, be it Japanese or Latin American, and confirmed that, in any case, the Super Étoile musicians can make any musical style sound mbalax!

Over the years Youssou has signed contracts with major record labels – including Virgin and Sony Columbia in the UK and 40 Acres and a Mule Musicworks and Nonesuch in America – but Senegalese fans have often complained that he oversimplifies his music for the international market. They have been irritated when a song which was a huge hit at home seems to have been watered down on its international release, ‘Gainde’, ‘Set’, ‘Birima’ and ‘Ligeey’ being oft-cited examples.

Lawyer Bara Diokhane contends that when African artists are ‘lucky’ enough to be offered a record deal by a multinational company who then delegate producers who understand nothing about African music but are supposed to know what will sell in the West, there is a problem, for in general they distort the music. For Diokhane, the song ‘Set’ was a case in point. The original cassette, which was launched in Dakar at the Club Aldo in 1989 on the back of a social movement called Set Setal, was one of Youssou’s greatest successes in Dakar. According to Diokhane, that first version of ‘Set’, an absolutely fabulous piece, had delighted everyone. It created a link between Youssou’s traditional audience and his new fans, including young people, intellectuals, men and women. Yet Diokhane told me in June 2006 how he feels that the version produced by Michael Brook for the international album Set (released on Virgin Records) destroyed the song. Despite sales of more than 60,000 copies and some rave reviews – Rick Glanvill, for whom Brook was an inspired choice as producer, described Set as an ‘unpolished gem of an album that approaches genius’1 – Virgin lost confidence in the project and released Youssou from his contract.

In a perceptive article in the New York Times, Jon Pareles observed how an intricate, eclectic music can be dumbed down on albums by nervous producers, and he offered his solution to the problem – hear the music live.2

It is true that Youssou’s Western record companies have tried at times to tame the mbalax rhythms and tailor his songs for a pop market. For example, there is not a Senegalese sabar drum within earshot on ‘Seven Seconds’, his duet with Neneh Cherry, and Doudou Doucouré observed that the song has nothing to do with African music, yet it sold over two million copies.

On the other hand, Youssou’s album Alsaama Day, a thoroughly home-grown product, presented Senegalese fans with a selection of fast and furious dance tracks which they found wholly satisfying. However, the prevalence of searing sabars, unusual harmonies and the seemingly trite English lyrics on ‘Del Sol Dal’ could be rather off-putting to Western ears.

Joko: From Village to Town, possibly Youssou’s most Westernised album, received generally mediocre reviews, one of which slammed its ‘bland grooves, MOR ballads and plodding cameos by Sting, Peter Gabriel and Wyclef Jean’.3 It was a commercial flop and led to Sony dropping Youssou. And yet the album contains what I consider to be a near-perfect crossover track, ‘She Doesn’t Need to Fall’, produced by Pierre Bianchi, arranged by Jérôme Lemonnier and co-written by Youssou, Prince Charles Alexander and Boubacar N’Dour. Youssou’s cascading vocals weave in and out of tripping, groovy rhythms magically propelled by drummer Manu Katché and Lemonnier’s keyboards.

44. Poster advertising Alsaama Day.

Youssou expressed his own reservations about his dealings with multinational record companies when he told Mark Hudson:

Western record companies haven’t always dealt with African musicians in the best way. Giving them a lot of money and telling them they’re going to be bigger than Phil Collins is the wrong way to do it! … Even if they don’t tell you which songs to play, you’re aware that it’s their money, and you feel pressure to produce a certain kind of sound. I wouldn’t say I was disappointed by Joko, but I wanted to find a new way of working.4

He was soon to sign a deal with Nonesuch in New York, an agreement that gave him greater artistic freedom and allowed him to record in his own studio in Dakar.

Egypt

The renowned Senegalese scientist and philosopher, Cheikh Anta Diop (1923–86), believed that the Wolof are a Nilotic people who travelled across North Africa and south to Senegal and whose dialect was close to ancient Kopt. The region which lies along the borders of the Senegal River, taking in the modern towns of Saint-Louis, Podor and Dagana, is deemed to be the birthplace of Wolof civilisation, rich in tradition and influenced in bygone times by Egypt and the royal courts of the pharaohs.

Knowing that Wolof culture has links with the Nile valley – and inspired by Oum Kalsoum, the Egyptian diva his father was a fan of and who he had listened to as a child – Youssou set out to create a fusion of the two countries’ music in his album Egypt. He used Wolof lyrics to highlight the peaceful way Islam is practised in his country, and in this respect he was assisted by Kabou Gueye who, through his family connections, has links with both of the main brotherhoods in Senegal. Gueye’s mother, Fat Thioune Khoudjia Yade, was a well-known griotte who animated Fanal ceremonies in Saint-Louis, while his father, Saliou Gueye, was an imam. Kabou is a Mouride but on his mother’s side he is Tidjiane: his maternal grandfather was close to the founder of the Tidjani movement in Senegal.

After several years of planning, Youssou finally got together with Fathy Salama and his orchestra to record Egypt, bringing with them an unlikely assortment of instruments – seven violins, two cellos, a double bass and oud, together with sabar drums, a balafon and a kora. The album was completed in 2001, the year the Twin Towers in New York were destroyed by Islamic extremists, so Youssou felt it would be inappropriate to release it immediately. In line with Cheikh Ahmadou Bamba’s pacifist views, Youssou said in an interview in Songlines magazine that it should not be necessary to kill even one person in the cause of Islam, and he has also expressed his concern about the way Islam is perceived: ‘My religion needs to be better known for its positive side. There’s a lot happening in the world that has been bad for the image of Islam, and the key question is how to change that.’ Speaking specifically about his album Egypt, he said, ‘Maybe this music can move us forward towards a greater understanding of the peaceful message of Islam.’5

While the album received a lukewarm reception from Youssou’s Senegalese fans at home and even some criticism from the Muslim brotherhoods, who objected to what they considered to be the commercialisation of Ahmadou Bamba, it finally appeared on the Nonesuch label in 2004 and won Youssou his first Grammy award the following year. Yet while the New York record company was happy to release Egypt, they declined to distribute Dakar–Kingston (presumably because they did not rate it), and it was finally released by Universal France.

Back in 1990, Rolling Stone magazine had predicted that if any third-world performer had a real shot at the sort of universal popularity last enjoyed by Bob Marley, it was Youssou N’Dour, a singer with a voice so extraordinary that the history of Africa seemed locked inside it.6 Youssou would be the first to admit that Bob Marley was a unique and consummate artist. His reggae was indeed universal, and he was well supported and promoted by Chris Blackwell and Island Records. However, Youssou’s own reggae project, Dakar–Kingston, somehow missed the mark. The original premise was to show that, at its source, mbalax uses the bass drum to emphasise the strong beat in the same way that reggae does. But since Youssou’s album was recorded mostly in Jamaica with some former members of the Wailers, there is nothing intrinsically Senegalese about this reggae. Youssou failed to create African reggae in the way that Alpha Blondy or Tiken Jah Fakoly of the Ivory Coast, or the South African Lucky Dube, or indeed the pioneering Senegalese group, Touré Kunda, inspired by the Djamba Dong (leaf dance) rhythms of Casamance, managed to do. In the case of Blondy, the universality of his reggae music was confirmed by the journalists Sylvie Clerfeuille and Nago Seck:

Blondy sings in Diola, a language understood all over West Africa from Tchad to Senegal, but he also sings in English and French. Like all reggae men he carries a rasta message, but it is adapted to his African public, especially through his use of proverbs. Nevertheless his reggae, with its new sounds, reaches a universal audience.7

On the other hand, Harry Belafonte, who was born in Trinidad and made a brilliant career singing calypso, considered making a reggae album but realised that no one can emulate Bob Marley: ‘I saw no way to bring a stamp of my own to what he did. You either did reggae the way Marley did or you didn’t do it at all.’8

With the release of the album Africa Rekk (Africa Now) in November 2016, Youssou surprised his fans. He seemed to have freed himself from all restrictions and contradictions and to have found the right recipe for combining his Senegalese mbalax with other styles from around the African continent and the diaspora. Here he is completely at home singing calypso, rumba, blues, reggae, salsa and soul music. During the album’s recording, Youssou immersed himself fully in all aspects of its production, as composer, producer, lead vocalist and backing vocalist. His experience and musicality shine through every track, from the haunting harmonica blues of the first song to the Afro-Cuban calypso of the last.

In ‘Exodus’ Youssou calls for unity, solidarity and dignity and urges young people to remain in Africa to help construct a brighter future for everyone. He reminds them that money is not the be-all and end-all. In a clever remake of his 1979 hit ‘Xalis’, a piece which boasted the attractions of money, ‘Money Money’ decries those whose sole aim is to increase their wealth. Family life counts for more, especially when one remembers the cruel separation of men and women in the House of Slaves on the island of Gorée during the Atlantic slave trade. He offers some fatherly advice to young women in ‘Be Careful’, while ‘Serin Fallu’ underlines Senegal’s reputation for religious tolerance. The spiritual guide in question, the second son of Cheikh Ahmadou Bamba, founder of the Mouride Muslim brotherhood, was a good friend of President Léopold Sédar Senghor, a Christian. On a personal note, in ‘Jeegel Nu’ Youssou seeks God’s pardon for his sins and asks forgiveness of his peers and all those whom he has wronged.

45. Tiken Jah Fakoly.