Youssou N'Dour (French:[jusu(ɛ)nduʁ], Wolof: Yuusu Nduur; also known as Youssou Madjiguène Ndour;[2] born 1 October 1959) is a Senegalese singer, songwriter, musician, composer, occasional actor, businessman, and politician. In 2004, Rolling Stone described him as, "perhaps the most famous singer alive" in Senegal and much of Africa[3] and in 2023, the same publication ranked him at number 69 on its list of the 200 Greatest Singers of All Time.[4] From April 2012 to September 2013, he was Senegal's Minister of Tourism.
Ethnically,[8] N'Dour is Serer, born to a Serer father and a Toucouleur mother.[5][9] However, culturally, N'Dour is Wolof.[9] He was born in Dakar.[5] He started performing at age 12 and would later perform regularly with the Star Band, Dakar's most popular group during the 1970s.
Despite N'Dour's maternal connection to the traditional griot caste, he was not raised in that tradition, which he learned instead from his sibling. Although patrilineally from the noble N'Dour family, his parents' world-view encouraged a modern outlook, leaving him open to two cultures and thereby inspiring N'Dour's identity as a modern griot. As a Mouride disciple, taalibé in Wolof, a Muslim of the Mouride brotherhood, one of the large four Sufi orders in Senegambia, he often incorporated aspects of Islamic music and chants into his work.[10][11]
Music career
At the age of 15, Youssou N'Dour joined a band called Diamono and, in 1975, toured with the band in West Africa.[1][12]
In 1976 when N'Dour was 16 years old, he signed a contract to sing with Ibra Kasse's Star Band at Kasse's Miami club in Dakar where he would become a sensation.
In 1978, N'Dour would follow as several members of the Star Band left to form Étoile de Dakar, a band that made important contributions to Senegal's newly evolving musical style called mbalax which incorporated traditional Senegalese music into the Latin styles that had dominated Senegalese popular music.[13] Although they quickly became one of the city's most popular bands,[14] the group was short-lived due to internal problems. Étoile de Dakar split into two groups: Étoile 2000 and Super Étoile de Dakar. The latter group included N'Dour, guitarist Jimi Mbaye, bassist Habib Faye, and tama (talking drum) player Assane Thiam. Super Étoile de Dakar produced four albums on cassette in just a few months and eventually evolved into N'Dour's backing band.
By 1991, he had opened his own recording studio, and, by 1995, his own record label, Jololi.
The New York Times described his voice as an "arresting tenor, a supple weapon deployed with prophetic authority".[21] N'Dour's work absorbed the entire Senegalese musical spectrum, often filtered through the lens of genre-defying rock or pop music from outside Senegalese culture.
In July 1993, Africa Opera composed by N'Dour premiered at the Opéra Garnier for the French Festival Paris quartier d'été.[22]
In 1994, N'Dour released his biggest international hit single, the trilingual "7 Seconds", a duet sung with Neneh Cherry.
He is the proprietor of L'Observateur, one of the widest-circulation newspapers in Senegal, the radio station RFM (Radio Future Medias) and the TV channel TFM.
In 2002, N'Dour was honoured with a Prince Claus Award, under that year's theme "Languages and transcultural forms of expression".
In Senegal, N'Dour became a powerful cultural icon, actively involved in social issues. In 1985, he organized a concert for the release of Nelson Mandela. He was a featured performer in the 1988 worldwide Amnesty InternationalHuman Rights Now! Tour collaborating with Lou Reed on a version of the Peter Gabriel song "Biko" which was produced by Richard James Burgess and featured on the Amnesty International benefit album The Secret Policeman's Third Ball. He worked with the United Nations and UNICEF, and he started Project Joko to open internet cafés in Africa and to connect Senegalese communities around the world.
In 2003, N'Dour cancelled an upcoming American tour in order to publicly deny support for the upcoming American invasion of Iraq. In a public statement explaining his decision, N'Dour said:
It is my strong conviction that the responsibility for disarming Iraq should rest with the United Nations. As a matter of conscience I question the United States government's apparent intention to commence war in Iraq. I believe that coming to America at this time would be perceived in many parts of the world--rightly or wrongly--as support for this policy, and that, as a consequence, it is inappropriate to perform in the US at this juncture.[30]
In 2008, he joined the Fondation Chirac's honour committee.[34] The same year, Youssou N'Dour's microfinance organization named Birima ("Birima" is also a song's title) was launched with the collaboration of United Colors of Benetton.
N'Dour is a member of the Canadian charity Artists Against Racism.[37]
Political career
At the beginning of 2012, he announced plans to stand as a candidate in the 2012 Senegalese presidential election, competing against President Abdoulaye Wade.[38][39] However, he was disqualified from running in the election over the legitimacy of the signatures he had collected to endorse his campaign.[40] N'Dour backed the opposition candidate Macky Sall, who defeated Wade in a second round of voting in March 2012. N'Dour was appointed as Minister of Culture and Tourism in April 2012 as part of the cabinet of new Prime Minister Abdoul Mbaye.[41] The story of N'Dour's presidential campaign was filmed for the PBS TV program Sound Tracks: Music Without Borders.[42] Later his portfolio was modified and he was appointed as Minister of Tourism and Leisure. He was dismissed from that post on 2 September 2013, when a new government under Prime Minister Aminata Touré was appointed.[43] N'Dour was instead appointed as Special Adviser to the President, with the rank of minister,[44] and tasked with promoting the country abroad.[45]
As himself, journeying from the island of Gorée to the USA and back, exploring the origins of jazz, which go back to the era of slave trade in Africa, through a concert performed by an international group of artists.[75][76]
^In the Senegambia region as well as many African cultures, a person's ethnicity is determined by their father's line or surname. N'Dour and its variation Ndure or Ndour is a typical Serer surname. See - Mwakikagile, Godfrey, The Gambia and Its People: Ethnic Identities and Cultural Integration in Africa, New Africa Press (2010), p. 136, 141. ISBN9789987160235
