Post-Colonial African Groove of the Week #9 – Badiene
Posted on | November 20, 2009 | No Comments
The post-colonial groove returns from its hiatus to feature one of the greatest stars in modern African music, Youssou N’Dour, from Senegal. Youssou has been an immensely popular force on the world music scene internationally for many years, having gotten his start in the ’70s with Super Etoile de Dakar. He has been instrumental in the development of mbalax, a rhythmically hyperactive style of Senegalese music blending traditional elements, especially percussion, with very contemporary electric guitars and keyboards. This track comes from a recording of a concert in Bercy, France, called “Le Grand Bal a Bercy,” which he holds every year and which attracts hundreds of thousands of fans. I don’t have many specifics about the other musicians or the lyrics, but here it is (click to listen):
The mbalax style is always very exciting, and Youssou’s band is truly one of the tightest bands on any musical scene, as far as I can tell. Their arrangements are simultaneously fluid and extremely specific, and the precision of their group hits, especially at the intense tempos, is very admirable. Many of the rhythms used here comes from traditional and contemporary sabar drumming, a uniquely Senegalese type of drumming using one hand and one stick. There are several sabar drummers in the group, as well as Youssou’s griot, who accompanies him on talking drum with great virtuosity. The keyboard parts are also of note. They are quite complex rhythmically and recall much of the traditional material that would be played on kora.
Youssou has many great albums which are worth checking out, and some of his Bercy concerts have also been released on DVD, allowing you to check out the rock star lighting and choreography accompanying these performances. Enjoy the weekend!
[Image credit: Henryk Kotowski, licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported]
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