Re-Visiting Youssou Ndour’s “Egypt”
Posted by Ginny on October 4, 2008
Assalamu alaikum, I’d wanted to do a post like this for a long time, just never gotten around to it.
“Egypt” was released back in 2004, and is a departure from Ndour’s other material, employing Arab influences in the music (as well as the use of some African instruments too), instead of a more “Western” sound.
The tracks are as follows:
Track listing: Allah (6:10); Shukran Bamba (5:30); Mahdiyu Laye (4:58); Tijaniyya (5: 45); Baay Niasse (5:18); Bamba the Poet (3:51); Cheikh Ibra Fall (3:35); Touba – Daru Salaam (5:50).
And an apt description of the album (as I’m trying to formulate one myself and can’t) found here, is as follows:
A few years ago N’Dour decided to put together a collection of music devoted to his faith, and the resulting Egypt sat around for five years before it finally saw release this spring. One need only look to current events to see the storm that swirls around the Muslim world; when September 11 happened, this record was placed back on the shelf for a better time. The powers that be have determined that this year is the year of Egypt , and thus the recording must be looked upon from contemporary terms.
The vagaries of the record business took their toll on the title of the record. Instead of being called Sant Allah (Thanks Allah), as it was in Senegal, the international release picked up a more neutral heading. But N’Dour, who praises the tolerance of his religion, makes no compromises in bringing a uniquely Senegalese view of Islam to the world. The lyrics (sung in Wolof and also printed in English in the liner notes) are dedicated to important figures in Senegalese Sufism.
In putting together the music for Egypt , Youssou N’Dour worked with Egypt’s Fathy Salama, who arranged and conducted his fourteen-musician group of violins, reeds, flutes, and percussion. The orchestral sound that resulted from the sessions in Dakar and Cairo is entirely distinct from anything N’Dour has ever recorded. The lilting melodies signal Arab influence; the interlocking percussion brings North African styles to mind; the tapestry of sound flows with raw West African momentum; and the vocals have a reverent focus that’s at once meditational and forthright.
This record might not move hips and feet like some of the singer’s earlier efforts, but it’s guaranteed to move hearts and minds. This music is bigger than one man, one country, or one religion: it’s the pulse of the world. Enough to make you believe in these marabouts.
A related story to this was, when I first heard the album profiled on Afropop, I’d briefly changed the station and had landed on a news story about a beheading in Iraq. Unfortunately, I don’t remember who it was, but I seem to recall they had video of it, and the juxtoposition of Youssou Ndour’s effort to show Islam’s “more peaceful side” and the beheading of this person was enough to send me into tears, though I can be pretty emotional anyway. But these two things put together, this beautiful album on one hand, and the beheading and other violence committed in the name of Islam on the other, was a contrast that has never been lost on me!
I was telling this story the other night to a dear sister on the phone and almost broke down again, and this was four years after first hearing the album. I’ve actually not listened to it since just before the house fire in 2005. Because not only does the album remind me of the juxtoposition noted above, it also brings back memories of getting out of abusive marriages, of emotional and spiritual healing, and the hurt, pain, anger, etc., associated with putting yourself back together after a painful/traumatic event. Oddly enough, I think I’m afraid to listen to the album again, because it always stirred up such raw emotion in me, and I’m emotional enough as it is, and embarrassed about it too.
But anyway, the track from the album that I want to profile today is the track I heard after flipping back to Afropop Worldwide, just after hearing the news story of the beheading. The track is called “Tijaniyya”, and if anyone can find the English translation of the liner notes (I’m trying to find them myself), or would like to translate, that would be much appreciated. I tried to find it online but have not been able to do so.
Anyway, enjoy…
