Jan 16/08
Memories, not mystery
We’ve been hearing a lot of classic Congolese music lately. Time to move to other countries and other decades for a few posts.
We’ll head back to contemporary Senegal today. Benn loxo du taccu is a Wolof proverb, afterall…
The other night my friend Laurent, who lived in Senegal for about a decade, gave me a couple mbalax compilations. Most feature songs that were popular while I was living in Dakar and hitting up a lot of mbalax clubs- that’d be around 2002-2004.
Mbalax is always a little shocking for first-time listeners. Laurent and I only brought it out the other night after numerous bottles of wine had been consumed. We’ve discussed many times before on this site how it sounds cheesy at first. Heavy on the synth, frenetic rhythms.. yet strangely addictive and impossible not to dance to once you’ve learned to love the Dakar nightclub scene.
So three tracks today: first a mega-hit by Fatou Laobe that I’m sure you’ll know if you visited Senegal anytime during 2003-2004. The second is a nice one by Sidy Samb, just to show you another style of mbalax (video here). The third is a live recording of Mbaye Dieye Faye with a guest appearance by Youssou Ndour. The crowd really loses their shit over this one.. I love it.
All three come from Mbalax Tarkhiss compilations. They’re some of the better collections of popular music in Senegal. If you hear it at the club, in the taxi or on the radio you’ll soon find it on one of the frequent releases.
ps- check-out the great mbalax dancing in this Fatou Laobe video.
Fatou Laobe – Labat
Sidy Samb – Askan wi
Mbaye Dieye Faye – Deugeula
how great that you added the E-mail this to a friend-thing!
I used it today, although I guess they already have this tracks. It’s just nice to see that other people have the same great taste! 
There was a Mbalax song in 2001-2002 that they used to play at this club in Madrid with a vocal that I swore was Youssou N’Dour where towards the end they repeated “Senegaaal!” a bunch of times. That was my first big mbalax tune, any clues on what it is? It sounds a lot like that song Deugeula, but I didn’t hear that Senegal part.
Also Matt, I got a request… I’m in desperate need of some Ethiopian/Eritrean Club Tunes… Anybody out there got leads?
Great stuff once again!! Those Sabar rhythms alone are totally infectious, let alone that crisp guitar, crazy synth and voices full of power and melisma! Now, all I need to do is learn those dance moves and I’m set for the Dakar club scene! hehe
Greetings, yeah, mbalax takes a little getting used to but once you do, well, for me anyway, I love it, though I don’t think I could learn the dance moves lol.
Boima, there’s about a million mbalax songs with “Senegaal!” in the lyrics..
Boima, if you get me some more of the lyrics in it I could try to do some research among friends and relatives, but as Matt is saying a lot of tracks include Senegal. The mbalax scene sometimes sounds like it’s sponsored by the National board of tourism!
Greetings, darn right manyof the songs say something about Senegal, lol, but don’t be too hard on the guy *smile*, you might not know that if you’re a mbalax newbie. (hey I still am I think)
Makes me remember my trip to Senegal in 2003 (my first time in Africa) and all the great music, mostly Youssou Ndour, coming from the loudspeakers of practically every taxi brousse I took. Wonderful.