Youssou N'Dour: Rough Guide to Youssou N'Dour & Etoile de Dakar : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

Before Youssou N'Dour became the world-music star he is today, before the slick, overproduced albums, the Amnesty International tours and the Bob Dylan covers, there was Youssou N'Dour and his Etoile de Dakar. Formed in the late Seventies out of the ashes of venerable group the Star Band, Etoile took Senegalese music into new, apocalyptic territory, cementing the feverish rhythmic style known as mbalax. The ghost of Cuba (a constant presence in West African dance music) was still there, but under the leadership of N'Dour, the material was Africanized, with Wolof lyrics replacing the phonetic interpretations of Spanish standards. Whereas N'Dour's subsequent output sounds the way world music is supposed to sound (infinitely warm, mildly exotic, informed by the inescapable influence of Western pop), the old Etoile nuggets that comprise this collection are rough and unpredictable. N'Dour's vocals boil with an almost mystical sense of ethnic pride, backed by frantic, staccato drumbeats and spiraling guitar lines. Originally released on cassette, these recordings sound tinny and flat. Underneath the low-fi presentation, however, lies music brimming with ecstasy and lust.

ERNESTO LECHNER
(RS 915 – February 6, 2003)