In the early 1980s, Senegalese singer Youssou N'dour performed at the Africa Centre in London as part of a club night called the Limpopo Club. It was the first time mbalax, the dance music popular in the Senegambia, had been heard in London and I like so many intrigued rushed off to buy his Immigres album released in 1984 on the UK Earthworks label.
The album and his European concerts put N'Dour on the international map. He went on to tour internationally (I saw him several times in Tokyo in the 1980s as he popularised mbalax. N'Dour went on to collaborate with many musicians, including a hit single he had with Neneh Cherry in 1994 called 7 Seconds).
Mbalax is often called an urban dance music based on the sabar drumming of Senegal's largest ethnic group, Wolof, along with soce and serer music and rhythms. The tama (talking drum) also features along with Afro-jazz, US jazz and soul, Afro-Cuban and salsa music. The genre also features some fantastic dance moves as well.
N'Dour went on to great fame and is rightly one of Africa's most recognised stars, as are the bands he played in such as The Star Band and Etoile de Dakar. He even stood as a candidate for president.
Not all the seminal bands from the early days of mbalax prospered, though. Take, for instance, Dieuf-Dieul de Thies, which formed in 1980. They performed locally in their hometown of Thies. The band featured three vocalists -- Assane Camara, Gora Mbaya and Bassirou Sarr -- supported by growling guitars, super-hot brass and driving, polyrhythmic drumming. The band went into the studio and recorded many songs, but sadly broke up in 1984 without releasing a single piece of vinyl or a cassette.
Then in 2013 and 2014, the Teranga Beat Label put together and released two compilations -- Aw Sa Yone, Vol.1 and Aw Sa Yone, Vol.2 -- and encouraged the three original founding members to re-form the band, which they did with the addition of six new musicians. In 2017, the band began touring again, initially in Europe.
In 2019, the band began recording using analogue equipment specially imported to Senegal, laying down seven studio tracks and two extended live songs. The result was Dieuf-Dieul De Thies on the Buda Musique label, released late last year.
My first impression of this terrific album is just how fresh it sounds. The opening track, Na Bineta, is a stormer as it features the fuzzy guitar of maestro Papa Seck (who passed away before the album was released), punchy, hot brass (trombone, then dreamy saxophone), topped off by Bass Sarr's soaring voice. Sarr is the sole surviving member of the original line-up but the new generation of musicians in the band have learned their craft well as the sound throughout the album is rich, multi-layered and rhythmically irresistible.
My favourite tracks so far are the opener and Djirim, the latter of which features a reggae-like rhythm that could well have come from the Casamance region of southern Senegal. I remember many years ago talking with Senegalese music fans about the similarity of reggae grooves with some mbalax songs. They joked that their ancestors developed these rhythms before reggae was even invented.
Dieuf-Dieul de Thies disbanded without releasing any of their recorded music but some 40 years later, after reforming with a new line-up, they now remain one of the few bands playing music from the golden years of West African dance bands (1960s-1970s), so if you get the chance to see them perform, go and see them.
The album ends with two live songs -- Alin Na Djime and Ndiguele -- recorded in 2017. These give the listener an idea of how the band builds up a song from a slow groove at the beginning to an ecstatic crescendo at the climax. The band is not just recreating the sound from the golden era, they are also taking the music further. Highly recommended.
John Clewley can be contacted at clewley.john@gmail.com.
