N'Dour, Youssou

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YOUSSOU N'DOUR

Born: Dakar, Senegal, 1 October 1959

Genre: World

Best-selling album since 1990: The Guide (Wommat) (1994)

Singer, drummer, bandleader, and composer Youssou N'Dour is the most important, successful, and influential African performer on the world music scene. A superstar and national hero in his native Senegal, N'Dour originated and coined the term "mbalax," that unique style of Senegalese dance music that took the music world by storm in the mid-1980s and has remained popular in the three decades since N'Dour began performing it.

Born in the rough Medina section of Dakar, the capital of Senegal, N'Dour's father was a mechanic and his mother was a female gawlo or griot, a West African troubadour who would sing of the region's royal history, family sagas, and oral traditions. Encouraged by his mother, N'Dour began singing as a child and became sought after for circumcision parties and gatherings. By the age of twelve, he was performing in theater, in music groups, and on radio broadcasts; by age fourteen, N'Dour had already earned the nickname "The Little Prince of Dakar."

In 1975, after joining the Star Band, the best-known Senegalese pop band of the time, the sixteen-year-old N'Dour became the star attraction of the act before forming his own breakaway group, Étoile de Dakar, two years later, and then Super Étoile de Dakar in 1981. The unique feature of these bands was that they drew upon the traditional sabar drum ensemble, which uses pitched drums dialoguing in suddenly fluctuating cross-rhythms and transposing these rhythms to electric lead guitar, rhythm guitar, and synthesizers. The rhythm guitar usually takes the role of the rhythm of the mbung mbung drum, and N'Dour began referring to this style of music as mbalax, the Wolof word for rhythm; N'Dour is credited with the invention of mbalax, which remains the dominant style of Senegalese music.

When Super Étoile began performing in the West, the mbalax craze moved with it and ignited enormous interest in this unique import from Senegal and the singer so associated with it. Peter Gabriel heard N'Dour at a London club in 1984 and was so taken with him that he used him on his So (1986) album, singing a duet with him on the hit single "In Your Eyes," which was also later used in
the film Say Anything (1989). Gabriel generously had N'Dour accompany him on his subsequent world tour both to sing with Gabriel and to open the shows with the Super Étoile; Gabriel also used N'Dour in his score for Martin Scorsese's film The Last Temptation of Christ (1988).

With the release of the album Immigrés (1985) in Europe and in the United States (1988), N'Dour became firmly established as the most popular African performer on the world music scene, a reputation also bolstered by his drumming contributions on Paul Simon's Graceland (1986). In 1988 N'Dour performed as part of Amnesty International's "Human Rights Now!" campaign, a forty-four-day, five-continent world tour kicked off by a special London concert in which N'Dour performed with Gabriel, Bruce Springsteen, Sting, and Tracy Chapman at Wembley Stadium.

With the album Lion (1989), which includes a duet with Gabriel, N'Dour began deliberately courting Western audiences quite effectively with glossy production values and some token English lyrics while continuing to sing in French and his native Wolof. That approach continued with Eyes Open (1992), recorded for director Spike Lee's record label. By the time of The Guide (Wommat) (1994), N'Dour's trademark mbalax sound was starting to take a backseat to even bigger production values and ever-increasing Western-style pop and rock elements; the multiplatinum single "7 Seconds" was recorded with hip-hop singer Neneh Cherry, jazz saxophonist Branford Marsalis makes an appearance, and a cover of Bob Dylan's "Chimes of Freedom" is included.

Joko (2000) actually appeared in two configurations: an American version subtitled The Link, which includes pop duets with Sting and Wyclef Jean, and an international release subtitled From Village to Town, which omits Sting and Jean and substitutes genuine mbalax. This marketing strategy continues on N'Dour's releases of Afro-pop albums for Western audiences and smaller, Senegalese-oriented releases on his own Jololi label.

Just as many critics had dismissed N'Dour as having sold out and abandoned his African roots, Nothing's in Vain (2002) appeared as a largely acoustic and the most African-oriented Western album N'Dour had released in over a decade. Yet even when N'Dour chooses to embed himself within the hackneyed trappings of Western pop music, he is able to generate interest because of the sheer resonance and tonal beauty of his tenor voice.

SELECTIVE DISCOGRAPHY:

Nelson Mandela (Polygram, 1990); Set (Virgin, 1992); Eyes Open (Sony, 1992); Lion (Virgin re-release, 1992); The Guide (Wommat) (Chaos/Columbia, 1994); Immigrés (Worldbeat/Virgin re-release, 1995); Ba Tay (Jololi, 1995); Inedits 84–85 (Celluloid/Melodie, 1997); Best of the 80s (Melodie, 1998); Special Fin D'annee Plus (Jololi, 1999); Joko (Nonesuch/Elektra, 2000); Le Grand Bel, Vol. 1 and 2 (Jololi, 2000); Lii (Jololi, 2000); Rewmi (Jololi, 2000); St. Louis (Jololi, 2000); Nothing's in Vain (Nonesuch/Elektra, 2002); The Rough Guide to Youssou N'Dour & Étolie de Dakar (World Music Network, 2002). With Peter Gabriel: So (Universal re-release, 2002). With Paul Simon: Graceland (Warner Bros. re-release, 1997). Soundtracks: Passion: Music for the Last Temptation of Christ (Geffen, 1989); The Wild Thornberrys Movie (Jive, 2002).

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

J. Cathcart, Hey You! A Portrait of Youssou N'Dour (Whitney, England, 1989); Y. N'Dour and É. De Dakar, The Rough Guide to Youssou N'Dour & Étolie De Dakar, abridged edition (New York, 2003).