I wanna be n’doured

Twelve years ago, Brian Cullman wrote in Rolling Stone that Youssou N’Dour was the one “third-world performer” that “has a real shot at the sort of universal popularity last enjoyed by Bob Marley.” Since then, though not quite inheriting the Global Stoners’ Posterboy crown from the legendary Jamaican, N’Dour has become one of the most internationally successful African musicians, having collaborated with Peter Gabriel, Brian Eno, Wyclef Jean and Neneh Cherry as well as pursuing his solo career and fronting Super Etoile, Africa’s most celebrated pop band.

His new album, Nothing’s In Vain (Coono Du Réér), marks another departure for the highly prolific artist: a slew of traditional, rural instruments are introduced to N’Dour’s fundamentally urban songwriting style, honed in the streets and clubs of Dakar’s Medina quarter. The result is a sound which is still unmistakably mbalax (percussion-based Senegalese pop with Latino influences), but very different from Ba Tay, N’Dour’s last album.

Thematically, he’s as focused as ever.

“This album is about love and politics,” he says. “Africa is full of contradictions. Sometimes it’s war, sometimes it’s AIDS, but always there’s love and beauty too. I think love leaves all these bad things behind. With our diversity of language and religion and culture, love must be the first word that everyone can understand.

“Politically also, I think the music on this album gives a message. It talks about our society. I’m not 100% political, but sometimes I like to sing about political things.”

These oppositions – love v. despair, individual experience v. national politics – are evident from the song titles alone: ‘La Femme Est l’Avenir de l’Amour (Women Are The Future Of Love)’ shares the bill with ‘Il N’y A Pas d’Amour Heureux (There Is No Happy Love)’, and the protest song ‘Genné (For the Displaced)’ finds resolution in the optimistic closer, ‘Africa, Dream Again.’

Over the past few years, Youssou N’Dour has released two albums a year, one for West African dancefloors and one for the international market. That Nothing’s In Vain falls into the second category is clear from its use of drum loops and synths – beneath the traditional instruments – to ‘Westernise’ the overall sound. Some have already criticised this, arguing that first world ears no longer need to be chaperoned into the rhythmic complexities of African music.

N’Dour is unapologetic; “All my music is from my heart and from my mind. This is me trying something new, not giving something up! The traditional arrangements gave me more space for my voice, and the drum loops keep the sound modern. This doesn’t mean I’m going to stay in this style forever, but I like it, I like what the album says. The music talks together.”