N’Dour Youssou

Bio

Youssou N’Dour was born in 1959 in Senegal from a griot family, a Senegalese caste of poets and musicians. His culture will be of deep inspiration for his artistic career, and he established himself on the music scene thanks to a mix of African, Caribbean, and pop sounds that characterize his music.

In 1977 he founded Étoile de Dakar which became the mbalax pioneer, a genre that weaves together Wolof sabar and Latin music, rock, Afro-pop. At the start of the Eighties, the band was renamed Super Étoile de Dakar and made its debut in North America. It was immediately noticed and acclaimed by critics and artists alike, including Peter Gabriel who invited N’Dour to participate in the renowned song “In Your Eyes” and, consequently, asked him to be the opening act for his international tour.

But Youssou earned his spot among the greatest international artists when in 1988 accepted to perform, together with Gabriel, Bruce Springsteen, Sting, and Tracy Chapman on the Amnesty International Human Rights Now! tour.

In 1989 he published his first internationally distributed album, The Lion, which included “Shaking the Tree” written with Gabriel.

Shortly after signing a record contract with Spike Lee’s label 40 Acres & a Mule, N’Dour was nominated for a Grammy Award for his first effort with the label, Eyes open (1991). In 1993 he recorded The Guide (Wommat) in Senegal, which was an international success.

In 2004 he moved away from pop and published Egypt, an album with Arab musical influence that touched themes typical of the Muslim religion. Egypt was positively embraced by the critics and won a Grammy Award for Best Contemporary World Music Album. This period of his life was immortalized in Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi’s documentary titled Youssou N’Dour: I Bring What I Love, released in 2010. A year later Yale University honored him with an honorary Ph.D. in music.

In 2012 N’Dour decided to run for the Senegalese presidency but was defeated by Abdoulaye Wade. Nonetheless, he was made Minister of Tourism and Culture by the then Prime Minister Abdoul Mbaye, but by 2013 he was back performing on the stages worldwide. The Senegalese artist’s thirty-fourth effort, Africa Rekk, was published in 2016 followed by History in 2019, for which N’Dour re-arranged some of his most famous songs.

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