I spent a week in Senegal in April for the first time since October, 2006.

The city has changed a lot superficially: many highways and flyovers have been built, posh Iranian-made taxis fill the streets, and glittering new nightclubs with a 15 Euro entry and leather shoe requirement have sprung-up all over the Almadies neighbourhood. Many of my old haunts have closed and new ones have taken their place.

But I stress that things have only changed superficially. The overall feel of Dakar is unchanged. Despite all the admittedly great new roads – we were half-joking that Dakar’s infrastructure now easily tops western Ireland’s – car rapides still sputter for space with faded-glory Dakar Dem Dikk Tata buses and the occasional horse-drawn cart; my favourite places are mostly still open, serving dibi and zouk late into the night; Tidjian and Amadou still sit smiling by the door of my old building beside the CCF and greet me like I had just been out of town for a few days; I recognize the faces of many of the car wash kids from my neighbourhood, now grown up, looking bored, rags in hand; and Sandaga remains largely the same with its touts near the music stands pretending to recognize me…and maybe they do.

I paid a visit to probably my favourite bar in Dakar, Chez Diamy in Point E, and it was still packed with a sweaty mass of Ivoirians half-listening and half-dancing to coupé-décalé and zoblazo. No evening would be complete there without a drunken incident involving a stolen wallet and, sure enough, that hadn’t changed either. (It wasn’t mine.) I think they might have even played Miss Lolo at one stage. (Remember, Ed?)

So what does Dakar sound like these days? It’s hard to get a feel in just a few days but I grabbed a dozen or so albums and compilations anyway and paid attention to the playlists in taxis and bars whenever I could.

Without a doubt the biggest thing going in Dakar these days is Titi. Ask any mbalax fan in Dakar between the age of 16-30 and you’ll usually get a “Titi, j’aime titi,” which admittedly makes me laugh every time for every immature reason.

Titi is a hot little mbalax number – a classically tall, thin and beautiful Dakaroise woman – who gets about as much radio play these days as Youssou’s latest Live at Bercy. I think her voice sounds a lot like Michael Jackson in his child-star, Jackson 5 days. Check her out here: http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x4yfyc_titi_music. The video for the song I’ll post is here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_tFYKZx5TA. Great dancing.

It was also good to hear that some of the old stand-bys are still getting lots of play; Abdou Guitte Seck and Omar Pene were all over the radio.

There were many, many mbalax acts that I didn’t recognize. We’ll hear from Abdou Rass and Ngone Ndiaye today – two great tracks, and to fully understand the spirit (and dancing) of the music you should definitely check-out the videos at the great new-ish Senegalese video site, SenClip: http://www.senclip.net/video/Ngone-Ndiaye-leumbeul and http://www.senclip.net/video/ABDOU-RASS-KOLEURE.

We’ll also hear a good mbalax track by Sidy Samb. You can see his video at yet another Senegalese clip site, Seneweb Videos: http://videos.seneweb.com/viewVideo.php?title=Sidy_Samb_women&video_id=219

Ok, enough mbalax. Hip-hop is still alive and well in Dakar.. but is it just me or has the golden age of Dakar hip-hop finished for now? The hip-hop I’m hearing still sounds like the stuff that hit the airwaves 10-12 years ago. Not that that’s a bad thing, but I poured over quite a few compilations and found only a few solid tracks. But hey, I don’t live there any more. If you’re reading this and disagree please correct me.

It’s good to hear that Daara J minus DJ Makhtar is still producing good music… at least some of them. Daara J Family is the latest iteration, and Tomorrow is a genuinely good tune in the spirit of the original group, which in turn is in the spirit of Positive Black Soul. Check-out their MySpace page. Video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pb_XWknv2ak

For something new-ish in the Dakar hip-hop scene we’ll hear from Res KP, a young Dakar rapper with a good sound. In much of his other music he, like many of his hiphop-galsène pals, tends to get a little too hardcore for my tastes. Positive Black Soul and their descendants were so wonderfully… native tongue. That gradual switch to a gangster sound is inevitable, I guess, and unfortunate. Res KP’s track, Calcul Mental, is good anyway. He has a MySpace page, too, and videos all over the web if you’re curious.

It’s impossible to talk about current Dakar music without playing some of that RnB cum reggae sound. Slower-jams are still infinitely popular in Senegal, but not all of it is crazy cheesy. (Notice we’ll skip the zouk.) See what you think of these two tracks by Carlo D and Maklan J.

Big love to Alex & Marianne, Pape, the Pitmans and the rest of you in Dakar who helped me remember what a great place it is.

Titi – Music
Abdou Guitte Seck – Domou Ndar
Omar Pene – Moom Tamit
Abdou Rass – Koleuré
Ngone Ndiaye – Leumbeul Lene
Sidy Samb – Women
Daara J Family – Tomorrow
Res KP – Calcul Mental
Makkan J – Reupeuteul
Carlo D – Yaye Fall