Youssou N'Dour: The goodwill ambassador
Youssou N'Dour's new album, Egypt, celebrates the best
of Islam and is his most personal to date. James
McNair finds a man who knows his place in the world
18 June 2004

http://enjoyment.independent.co.uk/music/interviews/story.jsp?story=532526

Arriving on foot - and, to his PR's surprise, on time
- Youssou N'Dour wears jeans, black leather sandals
and a blue-and-purple Paisley shirt. Were it not for
his quietly commanding aura, you'd hardly guess he was
a multimillionaire, world music's biggest star and, he
tells me, Bono's "Africa correspondent".

We've met in the gorgeous medina of Paris's Arab
Institute, where ornate gold tables, hookah pipes and
exotic music bring a slice of North Africa to France.
It may be the heat, or the relaxed setting, but soon
N'Dour and I are barefoot.

The singer is in Paris to promote Egypt, a stunning
new album that is easily his most personal and
uncompromising. Merging the incantatory griot singing
of his native Senegal with the exotic micro-tonality
of Egyptian classical music, the album is a collection
of praise songs - the Muslim N'Dour exploring
Senegal's long Islamic history while bringing
heartfelt glory to Sufi saints.

"I would hope that a Western person would enjoy the
music before they start thinking about religion or
politics," he says. But when pressed, this notoriously
circumspect 44-year-old agrees that Egypt has a timely
message. "My religion is about love and tolerance, but
that of the extremists who get all the headlines is
not. With Egypt, I feel like I am bringing honour back
to my religion."

N'Dour's caution about Egypt was reflected in the
album's painstaking gestation and long-delayed
release. Much of it was recorded in Cairo and Dakar as
far back as 1999, and for a time, N'Dour viewed it as
something that he and his loved ones would enjoy in
private, rather than a potential commercial release.

"When I finished it," he explains, "I had my last
album, Nothing's in Vain, ready to go also. But then,
after September 11, I played Egypt to my label,
Nonesuch, as a kind of surprise. They liked it and
wanted to put it out before Nothing's in Vain, but I
said, 'No, this is not a response to September 11. It
was written before that, and I want to keep it for
later.'"

Big on sweeping, majestic arrangements scored for a
14-piece Arabic orchestra by the noted Egyptian
composer Fathy Salamah, the new album has been much
lauded. When N'Dour and Salamah premiered it at the
Fes Festival of World Sacred Music at the beginning of
the month, one critic called it the world-music event
of the year; N'Dour tells me the performance and
resultant standing ovation were a "liberation" that
reduced him to tears.

However, it is the message of Egypt that has really
given the album legs as a news story: it was recently
dissected on BBC Radio 4's Today programme, and even
as I chat to N'Dour, his manager, Michelle "Gazelle"
Lahana, is fielding an interview request from the
American TV news giant CNN. Given that, last year,
N'Dour opted to cancel a tour of the US in protest at
the war in Iraq, the record's reception in America
should prove interesting.

"I am not Bruce Springsteen," N'Dour says when quizzed
about the cancelled dates, "but I wanted to use my
voice in the US. It was to be my biggest tour there -
eight weeks, travelling everywhere - and so it was the
right occasion to say, 'I must protest against the war
in Iraq; I must cancel.' I don't have a problem with
the American people - I have a problem with their
President. I'm not happy with the way he and others
decide to resolve problems without the United
Nations."

You could argue that America and its allies are the
countries that really need to hear Egypt. But while
N'Dour has now rescheduled some US dates, he will not
be performing his new album on American soil, although
he will talk about it while he's there. And if this is
a further instance of N'Dour's diplomacy, his new
album's adapted-for-the-West title is yet another.

He says: "If you buy it in Senegal, it is called Sant
Allah, which means 'Thanks God'. But I don't want to
force my religion on people, so I, not Nonesuch, made
the decision to have a different title here in the
West." He explains that he has retained the symbol for
Allah on the Western version of the album's artwork.
When it is put to him that this is delightfully
cunning, since those most likely to take umbrage at
the symbol are those least likely to recognise it,
N'Dour smiles and says nothing.

Still most famous here for his collaboration with
Neneh Cherry on the fabulous world-pop single "Seven
Seconds" ("She is my dear sister/ Send her my love
through your newspaper"), N'Dour was born in Dakar's
sprawling, working-class suburbs. His father, Elimane,
still works as a mechanic - though his son has offered
to provide for him - and his mother, N'Deye Sokhna,
recently welcomed him back into the neighbourhood
after Youssou left a house he found ostentatious for
something humbler and more private.

As with the Egypt album, this conscious downsizing of
the trappings of his success seems indicative of a
N'Dour who is newly determined to be himself.
Previously dropped by two Western record labels, and
long freighted with the Herculean task of doing for
African music what Bob Marley did for that of Jamaica,
he is happier and more creatively fulfilled than ever.

The ongoing challenges, he says, are work commitments
that prevent him from spending more time with his six
children, and the expectations of fellow Africans who
see him as pop star, cultural ambassador and a kind of
missionary. "When I last made the journey to Daru
Salaam," he says of the vast religious pilgrimage that
is memorably documented on Egypt's closing track, "I
just wanted to be a disciple, but the older people
wanted to talk politics and the teenagers wanted me to
be the Youssou they see on stage. It was very
embarrassing."

And what of the fact that he is a very wealthy man
from an extremely poor city? Does it weigh on his
conscience? "Yes," he replies thoughtfully. "But the
first thing I did, a long time ago, was to bring my
money and my business enterprises to Senegal to create
jobs. We now have a radio station, a record company,
an internet company and a magazine called
L'Observateur Sénégal. We employ more than 140 people,
and all of them have become financially independent.

"The other thing is to try to be reasonably modest. I
try not to drive the biggest car or wear the most
expensive clothes. I have lots of nice things, of
course, but I love to be close to ordinary people, and
if I get, say, a million dollars, I give a percentage
to the Youssou N'Dour Foundation, which fights Aids
and malaria. I want to be a good role model, so every
young Senegalese person can say, 'Maybe that is
possible for me.' I don't know if I manage it, but I
try."

N'Dour's father was born in a village outside Dakar. A
hard worker who has never learnt to read or write, he
wanted his son to become a doctor or a lawyer. When
Elimane married Youssou's mother, a griot singer and
storyteller, it was taboo for a griot to marry outside
the tradition. "That blend is the key to who I am,"
says N'Dour.

It was his maternal grandmother, Marie, who taught him
most about griot culture. N'Dour's father sent him to
stay with her when he was 15, and each time there was
a birth or a marriage in the community, Marie would
sing and give a traditional griot blessing. "Then I
sang at a circumcision ceremony, and people said, 'You
sound great!' Next day, something opened in my mind,
and I thought, 'Maybe I could do this.'"

By the age of 23, N'Dour was fronting his own band,
Super Etoile de Dakar. The group proved a striking
vehicle for his five-octave vocal range, and he and
his band helped to pioneer mbalax, a vibrant, up-tempo
blend of African, Caribbean and European pop. As he
matured as a lyricist, tackling themes such as
apartheid and drought, N'Dour caught the attention of
Senegal's politicians - and the British and American
rock musicians who were exploring the same issues. By
1986, his spectacularly distinctive pipes had
enlivened Peter Gabriel's album So and Paul Simon's
Graceland.

N'Dour still speaks fondly of Gabriel. "He is someone
I pray for," he says, adding that they will always
"represent" each other in their respective home
countries.

Recent rumours that Bono was trying to kick-start
another Live Aid concert have been discredited, but
would N'Dour have welcomed such an event? "He uses his
influence wisely," he says. "But when you bring aid to
Africa, make sure it goes directly to the people who
need it most. Aids and malaria are obviously huge
problems, but the creation of jobs is vital, too. That
is what will help people change their own lives."

'Egypt' is out on Nonesuch






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