Jenny Cathcart - Notes from Africa: A Musical Journey with Youssou N’Dour

. Youssou with the author.

I first travelled to Africa in 1984 as a researcher for the BBC television series The Africans . In Senegal, Youssou NDour, the new pop idol, was already the subject of gossip, rumour and hype. Women loved him. Youngsters idolised him. You Do Nit , they would say, meaning Youssou is more than a human being!

I had been brought up in Ireland on Beethoven and the Beatles but was thoroughly mesmerised by what Peter Gabriel called the liquid velvet voice, the scintillating sabar drums, the kaleidoscopic charm of Youssous modern dance music. Furthermore, I was so taken with Senegal and the Senegalese that my BBC colleagues began to call the country Jenegal!

Youssou introduced me to African music just as a new musical phenomenon, termed world music, was beginning to emerge. He and I were to become close friends and collaborators in promoting his own international career as well as those of other stars from Senegal, including Cheikh L and Orchestra Baobab. As one of the leading and most charismatic figures in modern African music, Youssou was the perfect guide to what was for me a thrilling musical journey.

At the dawn of the new millennium, Youssou was named African Artist of the Century by fRoots magazine, and in 2007 Time listed him as one of the hundred most influential people in the world. He has appeared at high-profile concerts including Live Aid and the Free Nelson Mandela concert at Wembley. He took part in Amnesty Internationals Human Rights Now! world tour alongside Sting, Peter Gabriel, Bruce Springsteen and Tracy Chapman. With Bono and Bob Geldof, he joined the ranks of those lobbying for debt relief for African countries. His collaborations with Peter Gabriel, Alicia Keys, Deep Forest, Annie Lennox, Ryuichi Sakamoto and others raised his global profile, and in 2005 he won a Grammy award for his album Egypt . In 2011 he received an honorary doctorate from Yale University and two years later, following in the footsteps of Bob Dylan, Ray Charles, Quincy Jones, Miriam Makeba and other major artists, he was awarded the prestigious Polar Music Prize.

Having chosen to remain in Senegal, Youssou has succeeded as both an artist and a businessman. In 2010, when President Wade threatened to remain in power for a third term, Youssou entered politics and became a candidate in the 2012 presidential election. Though he failed in his bid, he succeeded in his aim of helping to remove President Wade and was appointed Minister of Culture, then Minister of Tourism and today retains a ministerial post as a special adviser to President Macky Sall.

As a television producer on the BBCs pioneering world music series Rhythms of the World , and as series producer of The African Rock n Roll Years , I had the opportunity to work with other great African stars like Ali Farka Tour, Baaba Maal, Salif Keita and the Guinean group Bembeya Jazz National. Youssou NDour provided a vital link to all of them.

In this book I cover the rise of world music and the role that African musicians have played in it, most particularly those from Senegal and West Africa but also leading names from around the continent. More generally, I explain the modern musical styles that have developed in Africa since the 1960s, when many countries gained independence from colonial rule. Stars like Franco and Papa Wemba (Congo), Miriam Makeba, Hugh Masekela and Abdullah Ibrahim (South Africa), Thomas Mapfumo (Zimbabwe), Anglique Kidjo and Wally Badarou (Benin), Manu Dibango (Cameroon), King Sunny Ade (Ghana) Fela Kuti (Nigeria) and Khaled (Algeria) blazed a trail for the next generation of talented musicians whose music reflects the exuberance and confidence of their emerging continent. The journey has been enchanting and enriching, the music mesmerising and memorable.

Jenny Cathcart
March 2019

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Dakar, Senegal