World music icon Youssou N’Dour back on the road

A rat-a-tat percussion and keyboard riff, and Youssou N’Dour’s voice tore through the dark Dakar sky, as the world music legend geared up to do what he does best — rock through the night. With a new album out and a world tour starting this week, the Senegalese icon and Grammy Award winner — who confesses he “couldn’t live without music” — shows no signs of slowing down despite his 45 years in show business.

“Let’s rock,” he barked to his 12-piece band Super Etoile at around an hour to midnight, before the strains of one of their last pre-tour rehearsals rang out well into the small hours.

Five years after his last album, N’Dour’s latest record “Eclairer Le Monde” (Light The World) voices his commitment to human rights and gives a place of honour to traditional African instruments, a feature of his extraordinary career. “It’s been nothing but a blast!” the 65-year-old told AFP of his decades in music.

In that time he has cut dozens of gold discs and laid down tracks with the likes of Peter Gabriel, Paul Simon, Sting, Manu Dibango and Neneh Cherry. After all that, why throw himself into another record and a gruelling transatlantic tour schedule taking in Paris, London, Munich and New York? “Simple — I’m still passionate!”

Hailed as the “king of Mbalax”, his own urban musical melting pot of Senegalese rhythms and Latin styles, N’Dour brought his pioneering world music to international acclaim from the 1980s onwards.

His 1994 hit “Seven Seconds” with Neneh Cherry shot up the charts across the world, while his frequent collaborations saw him bridge the divide between Western and African music.

“When I relisten to all the things I’ve had the chance to do, I regret nothing,” he told AFP on the sidelines of the rehearsal in the Senegalese capital. A multi-talented musician, songwriter, producer and arranger, N’Dour possesses a bewitching vocal range, reaching spine-tingling highs as Super Etoile ran through a frenetic rendition of his song “Boul Ma Lathie”. He hoped his latest album would “restore prestige” to world music. Along with the rhythm of the djembe — a traditional drum — the songs feature traditional instruments such as the kora, sokou, ngoni and balafon. All are “extraordinary in terms of their sound” to his ears. Another goal for his new record: to serve as a “source” for younger people working in African pop music.

“Eclairer le monde” features many young musicians playing African instruments “whose knowledge has been passed down from their parents”, he said. He was “enormously touched” that the music he has made still resonates today, with younger artists sampling and covering his tunes. “It sends me into orbit,” he said.

Born in the working-class Medina neighbourhood of Dakar to an ironmonger father, the artist has a quarter-century of human rights activism behind him alongside his years of musical success.

His latest album hails “universal love for one’s fellow human”, while on “Sa ma habiibi” (My Love) he calls for respect for women’s rights and condemns forced marriage.

On “Sam Fall” and “Ahmadou Bamba”, his voice floats delicately above the band in tributes to Senegal’s spirituality. “Music is entertainment — we make people happy, people party to music — but we’re aware that it’s a force,” he said.

“Culture is the beginning and the end of where peoples and generations meet. We must continue to use it to deliver messages, to push powerful ideas such as human rights and mutual respect.”

Ibou Cisse, N’Dour’s keyboardist since 1987, put his boss’s long career down to “talent, passion” and companionship as well as his commitment to social and cultural causes.

On top of all that the singer is also a businessman and press mogul, has founded his own political movement and served as Senegal’s culture minister from 2012 to 2014. Given his hectic schedule does he ever see himself retiring from recording and no longer playing concerts? “I’ll continue playing music until my last breath,” he replied.

Agence France-Presse