Formed
from members of two of Dakar, Senegal’s most popular nightclub bands, Étoile de
Dakar – fronted by vocalist Youssou N’Dour – took the city by storm, soon
becoming the most popular band in all of Senegal and revitalizing its music
industry, and quickly one of the most popular in all of Africa. They lasted for
three years and only a few albums before conflicts within the group made it
splinter into several offshoots and Youssou N’Dour catapulted to fame on an
international stage. They took the Latin-tinged music popular in West Africa
and imbued it with Senegalese roots, creating a music called mbalax, a term coined by Youssou from
the Wolof word for “rhythm,” and rhythm is what it’s all about, creating a
fast, ferocious groove that shifts regularly and willfully throughout the songs,
making them sometimes hard to grasp on one shot, but riveting and rewarding for
multiple listens.
And
this collection, selected by Graeme Ewens, author of several excellent books on
African music, is as good a way to introduce yourself to the band as any that
exists. Or at least, it’s a good way to introduce yourself to Youssou N’Dour’s vision
of the band, since all the songs are written by N’Dour and two of them are from
his post-Étoile group Super Étoile de Dakar. The record kicks off with one of
the group’s finest moments, “Absa Gueye” which introduces you right off the bat
to the most important things in the band: the song starts with a guitar rhythm
after which the bass comes in to lock in with it, followed by a second guitar
augmenting the swift rhythms. Then come the drums, a deeper sabar drum and one of the band’s most
notable features, the tama drum,
pounding sometimes in tandem with the rest of the group, sometimes making a
staccato solo statement on top of them. These are all followed by the ace horn
section bleating out a hooky riff. And then the voices come in. You’ll notice
Youssou’s tenor right away – he’s in the right channel – because he’s got the
strongest voice, but you can’t miss El Hadji Faye’s high wail in the other
speaker or Eric M'Backe Doye packed in the middle. Again, they sometimes sing
together, sometimes comment on each other’s words, sometimes tail off into
different harmonies at the same time. But “Absa Gueye” ends in relatively short
order and leads to “Jalo,” the mellowest thing here, and also a good way to
experience the voices with the least clutter going on around them. For this
group, this is a relatively mellow beginning, and the third track, the
12-minute “Thiapatholy,” starts slower before suddenly erupting into high gear
and we’re off to the races.
Maybe instead of easing into the
waters, you should dive right into the deep end with “Thiapathioly,” a masterpiece
of mbalax that can seem forbidding at
first, but tells you about everything that their music is in one, shifting,
ever-accelerating piece. It starts out slower, but then at the 0:50 mark the
horns blow out a riff and the rhythm takes off at a gallop. Lead guitarist Badou
N'Diaye kicks out a solo for about a minute after that (unfortunately it’s a
little low in the mix). At about 3:15 the horns play the riff that will repeat
the most in the song while the tama
drum beats out an insistent pattern with them and then its own pulse in the
moments between riffs. Shortly after, the vocals join in the fray as well,
singing together, declaiming individually, trading off phrases, but all feeling
the rhythm. At 5:53 a new horn riff and rhythm set up for a moment then at 6:09
the rhythm shifts again to something even faster. A little shy of the 7-minute
mark there’s another new horn riff, then quickly a faster reappearance of the
old riff from earlier in the song and the tama
and sabar drums step up to the speed
we’re at now. Vocals drop out for a
moment while the horns, guitars and bass riff and the percussion takes a lead
for a while. Youssou returns at 9:00 and at this point everyone in the band is
going nuts. At 10:35ish, the rhythm shifts again to a trickier pattern, slows
down a touch to a more swinging groove at 10:55 and rides that to the vocal finale
of the song, just shy of 12 minutes. It’s an epic song in the true sense, and
runs you through the finest that mbalax
has to offer.
Other songs throughout highlight
their guitars (“Diokhama Say Ne Ne” especially), their gifted horn section
(most of the songs), and their remarkably sure sense of (fast, danceable)
rhythm even when the songs get dense and complex. But if the youthful drive of
several virtuoso players jockeying for lead space sounds exhausting, maybe try
the later cuts like “Youssou” which might be the best place to start if you’re
not ready to dive into the deep end with “Thiapathioly.” It’s slightly slower, has
fewer changes (and less jarring ones at that), great singing – maybe the vocal high
point of the disc here – and another terrific horn riff. And there’s a moment
when N’Dour hands the reins to the guitarist when he says “C'est ça” and the
guitar rips out one of the best (and most clearly recorded) solos of the entire
set. It’s a great one. The collection ends with two cuts from N’Dour’s Super
Étoile de Dakar, who he took to Europe with him to tour and begin a new phase
of his career. These two are directly in the spirit of the Étoile de Dakar that
we’ve just heard – which makes sense since N’Dour wrote and sang lead on every
cut here.
By 1981, they’d had enough of each
other, with El Hadji Faye, Eric M'Backe Doye,
and Badou N'Diaye splitting
to form Étoile 2000, who made one worthy (and hard to find – snap it up if you
see it) album before splitting up yet again, and Youssou, tama drummer Assane Thiam, percussionist Babacar Faye, and animateur Alla Seck (the rough
equivalent to a hype man – think Flavor Flav), forming Super Étoile de Dakar
and conquering Europe. Since the regular albums (all worthwhile) are long out
of print, this may be your best - and is certainly the most economical - route
to find out about one of the most exciting bands on the planet. You could grab
the more balanced two-disc collection Once
Upon A Time in Senegal, which more thoroughly goes through their catalog,
featuring the many other songwriters who did work for the group and overlapping
with only five of the cuts here. Or get them both. You won’t be sorry.
-
Patrick Brown
No comments:
Post a Comment