Youssou N'Dour discovers new freedom in Reggae music

When he landed in Cape Town for the annual Jazz Festival last April, he was accompanied by some members of The Wailers Band, the remnants of the late Bob Marley's group.

For over an hour, he performed some of Marley's hits, throwing in a few lines about his love for Bob Marley's hits. Today, the Senegalese artiste has a new album titled Dakar to Kingston that links the two cities in an interesting way, again.

Youssou N'Dour’s journey to Kingston began with the music pulsing from the Dakar market stalls of his childhood. It began during long hours of listening to reggae LPs from his uncle’s record store.

It continued decades later, long after N'Dour became one of the world’s best known and best loved African singers, as circumstances conspired and he found himself at Tuff Gong studios, walking in Bob Marley’s footsteps and jamming with Marley’s musical friends.

Dakar-Kingston (Emarcy Records; June 7, 2011) maps this road, turning N'Dour classics and several new originals into reggae anthems, reflecting reggae’s deep impact on West African music and culture. Guided by veteran reggae producer and former Marley collaborator Tyrone Downie, N'Dour finds the sunny and urgent, the laid-back and the hard-grooving sides of Jamaican music, supported by a multigenerational crew of Jamaican and African reggae voices.

N'Dour, a pioneering performer whose strikingly expressive voice transformed both the mbalax music of his native Senegal and Western pop, is an experienced traveller. He has effortlessly climbed charts in North America and Europe, thanks to duets with Peter Gabriel, Neneh Cherry, and Sting. He has traced the roots of his griot (traditional oral historian) heritage, and explored his Muslim faith and its sonic impact, by collaborating with Egyptian musicians, winning a Grammy for his efforts.

Straight to the point

“Reggae gives you more space than mbalax. You have more room to breathe,” N'Dour reflects. “You know the rhythm and the emotion, exactly what the song is saying to you. It’s very direct at its heart.”

For N'Dour, this freedom and directness translates into a stronger medium for the messages that he, too, has dedicated his career to spreading. His voice has launched Senegalese social movements (Set became a rallying cry for urban youth activists in 1994). His songs have whipped up international support in the fight against malaria (2009’s Fight Malaria) and for women’s rights (1989’s Shaking the Tree with Peter Gabriel) are some of the issues N'Dour has addressed.