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Orientissimo: A New Direction for Senegalese Music?
Senegal's top Sufi singers lead a musical liberation from the West and a reunion with spiritual sources of the East.
By Josh Moore In times when foreign "others" are demonized, music that exalts the spirit of our universal shared humanity can be an important political statement. Two new recordings by Thione Seck and Youssou Ndour make a bold stand for solidarity and diversity by bridging gaps of culture and religion across continents through artistic collaborations, and may represent a new orient-ation in how Senegal relates musically with the global market. Sufi Music: Unity and Resistance The Mouride brotherhood of Senegal finds its origins in the Quadiriya order, founded in Iraq in the 12th Century. The Quadiriya fanned out from Baghdad to India and North Africa and became the most widely-spread Sufi order in Islam's great reach. The Sufi mullah's of the Quadiriya were particularly effective in preaching the power of Muslim unity to resist foreign domination. Their followers, called Murids or 'holy warriors,' successfully fought off the Russian Empire in the Caucuses in the 17th and 18th centuries, among other places. One such Sufi leader was Cheikh Amadou Bamba in Senegal, who broke away from the Quadiriya to form the Mouridiya (the Mouride brotherhood) to rally the crumbling kingdoms of the region against the invasion of the French in the late 19th century.
Wherever Sufi mystics spread Islam they brought with them traditions of devotional singing (called Dhikr), which moves the heart of the singer (and listener) into a spiritual union with God and with the universal spirit of humanity. In India and Pakistan, Qawwali music, made globally popular by Nustrat Fateh Ali Khan, has been known to move the stodgiest of audiences to a state of rapture. Other Sufi musical styles thrive in Morocco, Egypt, Indonesia, Turkey (home of the whirling dervish Sufis), Iran, the Balkans and the Caucuses, among other places. And, for anyone who has tried to sleep in a crowded Dakar neighborhood on a Thursday, you have most likely heard the Sufi devotional singing of the Mourides. For Mourides, the weekly Njang chanting is a communion with God and the spiritual teachings of Bamba. For the Baay Falls, music is essential in to a devotional way of life, and their chants reach trance-inducing intensity. The Tijaans, Senegal's other major Sufi brotherhood, dress in white and gather under large tents for all-night pow-wows called "Chants Réligieux," usually in honor of a person or a holiday. There is no mistaking the importance of singing and music in the many Islams of Senegal.
Today, while the US and Britain occupy the spiritual origin of the Quadiriya brotherhood in Baghdad and further alienate Muslims worldwide with draconian policies, Senegal's premier Mouride vocalists are carrying on the traditions of liberation and solidarity through devotional music. Youssou Ndour and Thione Seck, who have courted the western market for years with more secular pop music, have both recorded breath-taking and ground-breaking albums in collaboration with orchestras from Egypt and India. Though Black Africa's relationship with the Arab world has been less than chummy since the jihads and slave trading of the 18th century, Ndour and Seck reveal cultural kinship shared across the Sahara. In a time of foreign threat (war on terror, globalization, pre-emptive war), these recordings combine the devotional singing traditions of South Asia, the Middle East, and Senegal, liberating the artists from the cultural confines of the western market, and building ties of cultural solidarity and free collaboration between spiritual kin spread out across the Sufi world.
This wouldn't be the first time that Senegalese musicians strived to balance liberation from the West with their desire to remain relevant in the global market. The African salsa bands of the 1960s and 1970s re-added African flavor to the music of a newly-liberated Cuba, itself already pulsing with African heritage, and forged a genre that was at once 'modern' and 'cool,' without being Western or colonial. Salsa was the music of cultural resistance and political liberation, inspiring hits like "Indépendence Cha-Cha" in Congo. Southern countries of the newly-independent 'third world' were united under a cultural banner of 'tropicalismo'--a name taken from the Brazilian cultural movement of the 1960s. Today's cultural liberation in Senegal, if it can indeed be described as such, may find its banner in the title of Thione Seck's album: Orientissimo.
Orientissimo, Thione Seck
Orientissimo, produced by the legendary producer Ibrahima Sylla, is a work of astounding beauty. The cover shows a relaxed Thione Seck seated in front of an iconic painting of the Hindu deity Saraswati, goddess of knowledge, art and music, floating on a lotus flower. Certainly, Saraswati has blessed this recording which overflows with the synergy of cultural research, artistic acumen, and musical virtuosity.
Thione Seck teamed up with talented singers and orchestras from India and Egypt to explore their shared traditions of devotional music. The result is a perfect blend of Eastern lament with West African pulse and boldness. A host of arrangers, music consultants and casting directors have made this recording sound uniquely full. Seck's powerful, almost operatic, voice sounds right at home with that of South Indian female vocalist Bombay Jayashri, accompanied by tabla percussion, strings, and flutes, even as they sing one of Seck's old hits, "Assalo." The haunting and entrancing raga "Mouhahibou" could compare with the best of North Indian classical recordings, even though Seck is singing the praises of Senegal's Mouride brotherhood founder Mouhamadou Bamba. Other gems on this cassette include the song "Siiw," backed by a belly-dancing style Egyptian rhythm and a driving Arabic string arrangement. The female Egyptian vocalist Rehab makes a moving performance on the duet "Woyatina," with a viola-like voice that blends mysteriously with the orchestra.
Upon listening to the cassette, an impressed Indian friend of mine suggested that Seck may become a new hit in India, despite the language difference. Perhaps this is just the break that Seck needs, since his voice has never sounded quite right in other attempts at a global sound. The growing market for music in the East, which shares many of the devotional music traditions of Senegal, may be Seck's deliverance from the confines of a Western market that has yet to appreciate his outstanding abilities. Ironically, the 'World Music' niche of European and American listeners may be able to relate to this recording much better than to Seck's previous work aimed at the mainstream.
Sant, Youssou Ndour
Pop icon Youssou Ndour, who boycotted his own US tour to protest the buildup toward war in 2003, recorded Sant, a musical fusion of Arab and Senegalese traditions, with the Fathy Salama Orchestra in Cairo. [The album was later released internationally as Egypt, and won a Grammy Award for Contermporary World Music in February, 2004.] Youssou not only blends musical flavors, but also fuses griot praise with devotional singing. The first track on Sant (Praise God) begins with a fable-like praise of a single, benevolent God, but ends in a trance-inducing chant on par with the best Qawwali music of South Asia.
The rest of the album is dedicated to praising not God but, rather, the founding fathers of the major Islamic brotherhoods of Senegal: the Mourides, the Niassènes, the Tijaans, the Layènes, and the Baay Falls. Though Youssou dedicates four songs to his own brotherhood, the Mourides and their mystics (Baay Falls), he embodies a spirit of inter-denominational solidarity in the songs "Mahidiyu Laye," "Tijaniyya," and "Baay Niasse." The liner notes read, "We share our humanity, even if we can differ in our color, our way of being, and our beliefs in a variety of religious faiths. [This album] urges the acceptance of differences and the appreciation of diversity and respect." This appeal to universal humanity through music echoes Sufi traditions, as well as African philosophies articulated by the Wolof adage "Nuun nëpp ay doomu Aadama lanu" (We are all the children of Adam).
Musically, this cassette is beautifully orchestrated and pleasantly interesting. Arab violins and flutes waft through the plucks of string bass, kora and balafon, punctuated by subtle percussion. Youssou's rhythmical and vocal dexterity weaves together the minimalist accompaniment seamlessly. The arrangements are a refreshing change from Youssou's popular mbalax music, which seems to have reached its artistic limit.
Contributed by: Josh MooreFirst published: www.afropop.org
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