I’ll soon be leaving Senegal and I’m starting to get pretty reminiscent. Dakar is a great city, one that you should try to visit at least once in your life. Horrible for tourists, known for its filth and street hasslers, it’s also home to some of the nicest people, best nightlife and cosmo meets traditional in all of West Africa. From the dive bars of plateau to the nightclubs of Pikine, it’s a wonderful place that, after nearly two and half years, I’m only beginning to understand and appreciate.

That said, I was pleasantly surprised when a Benn loxo reader, Dominique, wrote me a nice e-mail asking me to post some mbalax music. I have so many great memories of sweating my ass off at 4am in Dakar nightclubs, shaking it as best a white boy can in an impossible attempt at sabar to the mbalax rhythms.

For those not in the Senegalese know, mbalax is the music in Senegal. Popularized by the likes of Youssou Ndour, Thione Seck, Omar Pene and more, it has become the unofficial national sound. I’ve written before about how it never ceases to amaze me how local mbalax sounds dominate all aspects all aspects of nightlife – and taxi radio listening – when in other West African countries I’ve visited European and American influences run wild.

Last year Abdou Guité Seck’s album, Coono Evolution, was one of the big hits. Seck’s most successful single, Modou Modou, was repeated almost as much as Youssou Ndour’s 2003 single, Sa Ma Yaye.

Abdou Guité Seck hails from St-Louis, Senegal, a city on the Mauritanian border in northern Senegal. It’s one of my favourite spots in the country aside from the Casamance. You can get a good feel for the city in a great book I bought recently, Albin Michel’s Saint Louis du Sénégal. The picture on today’s post is also one I took in St-Louis a couple years ago.

Now, please, when you listen to this song there is a serious chance that your first reaction is going to be “what is this cheesy crap?” That’s the classic Western first-time reaction to mbalax music. But give it a few tries, and while you’re listening close your eyes and picture a beautiful Senegalese woman dancing the ventilateur. This was the big dance last year where Senegalese women present their jolies marmites to the men and shake them at about 200 rpms. Then, and only then, will you understand what the sabar is all about (and why it was banned at one time in some countries).

Abdou Guité Seck – Modou Modou