Youssou N'Dour On Senegal

By Youssou N''Dour

I live in Dakar and am certainly present on the scene. Living there gives me a certain inspiration; it allows me to keep my passion for music alive. There's a lot of great young talent in Dakar. Every two or three years, I actually produce an album for someone, but I also started a record label called Jololy, and I think that with the passage of time some of these young people are going to do better than I. I listen to a lot of things in the music of today. But I also have a particular weakness for the music of the '60s. I listen to a lot of Marvin Gaye and Otis Redding, and Latin music. I grew up close to Latin music in Dakar. I listen to a lot of local music--Senegalese music--which is rich and diverse in our country. I find myself going back to it all the time.

In the beginning, when mbalax [a blend of Senegal's traditional griot percussion and praise singing with modern Afro-Cuban arrangements] was starting off, it was never a question of people saying, "It's not good; it's not well done," but rather, "We don't like it." Later, as success arrived with this music, those who were more traditional began to appreciate that our success could be a window onto traditional music.

Traditional music is everywhere in our culture. It's something that's very close to the people, so naturally it's going to bear upon my work because it's ever present. Traditional music and culture are the environment itself. They're in the clothes and the ambiance of the street, so they absolutely mark everything that I do.

I tend to go for openness and look outward in my musical searching. But recently I feel maybe an obligation to be more of a protector, a guardian, a curator almost, of traditional sounds and music, so lately I've been working that thought into my albums. However, who knows what tomorrow may bring? I may fall in love with some sound from Asia or from elsewhere, and all of a sudden my recordings may take a turn that I hadn't anticipated. You can't really program music. A musical life really shouldn't have any limits. I don't really believe in formats, and once you get rid of formats, everything is available to you. When you break out of categories, you automatically encounter new things. It's from these new experiences that interesting things happen.

--Reported by Alex Smith

With reporting by Alex Smith