Arts & Lectures
2001-2002 Performing Arts Season News Release
For Immediate Release

September 4, 2001
Contact: Susan Gwynne
(805) 893-2098
e-mail: gwynne-s@sa.ucsb.edu

African superstar Youssou N’Dour
performs at UCSB Arts & Lectures

Summary Facts:

Senegalese superstar Youssou N’Dour will perform with his band Le Super Étoile on Tuesday, October 16 at 8 pm in UCSB Campbell Hall. The pioneering force behind mbalax—a celebratory blend of African, Caribbean and pop rhythms—Youssou N’Dour’s sweet, arching vocals can be heard on collaborations such as Peter Gabriel’s “In Your Eyes.” Of his most recent release, Joko (The Link), Village Voice critic Robert Christgau claimed: “Even when he’s testing the world’s most ductile ballad pipes you can feel him getting you ready to dance, dance, dance.”

N’Dour’s mbalax has its roots in Wolof (the majority culture of Senegal) rhythms, keyed by intense percussion from tama (a hand-held talking drum) and sabar (a standing drum similar to a conga). Upon this rhythmic base, Le Super Étoile builds seductive melodies played by guitar, keyboards and horns. The crowning touch is N’Dour’s voice that earned him the title “Le Petit Prince de Dakar” by the age of 14. His piercing tenor can be gritty or soothing, at times soaring as if an Islamic incantation, but in any timbre it is unmistakable. Rolling Stone calls N’Dour, “A singer with a voice so extraordinary that the history of Africa seems locked inside it.”

N’Dour is also famous for his electric live performances, known as soirées dansantes in his home of Dakar, Senegal. He has headlined the annual Great African Ball in New York City to much acclaim; The New York Times writes, “He throws an irresistible party.” Carefully building the intensity of each show through clever song order that ratchets up the rhythms as the evening goes on, he and his band are just the first to dance at most shows. In fact in the 1980s they started a dance craze in Africa, the ventilateur, which involved bending over and rotating one’s posterior suggestively.

Born in 1959, N’Dour began his musical career drumming in kassaks, the traditional Wolof circumcision ceremony. He joined Senegal’s most famous band, The Star Band, and quickly became its leading light, recording numerous hit cassettes. Leaving the group to form Étoile de Dakar, which developed into Le Super Étoile, he had his first international success with Immigrés in 1985. That success was the stepping stone to his work with Peter Gabriel, beginning with the hit “In Your Eyes” on Gabriel’s 1986 release So. Gabriel and N’Dour have continued to collaborate since then—on Gabriel’s powerful soundtrack for The Last Temptation of Christ, on the feminist anthem “Shaking the Tree” and on “This Dream,” a track from Joko.

Poised to become the first true world music superstar since Bob Marley, N’Dour has taken cautious steps in the U.S. market while remaining prodigiously productive in Senegal. In the U.S. he has released The Lion (1986), Set (1990), Eyes Open (1992) and The Guide (1994) prior to his release of Joko last year. Meanwhile in Senegal he runs one of Dakar’s swankest nightclubs, writes music for the World Cup and leads social movements through his inspiring songs (an effect generally lost on non-Wolof speaking audiences). The title song from Set—the word in Wolof means “clean” or “pure”—inspired a youth movement in Senegal, a rallying cry for cleaning up neighborhoods and clearing away illegal garbage dumps.

“N’Dour continues to carve an Afropop path that’s as enlightening as it is stirring,” writes the Boston Herald. “In the process, he has reaffirmed his status as the Muhammad Ali of African music.”

Presented by UCSB Arts & Lectures.

For tickets or more information,
call UCSB Arts & Lectures at (805) 893-3535.

Editor: For photos, please call
Susan Gwynne at (805) 893-2098.

©2001 UCSB Arts & Lectures, University of California, Santa Barbara