My African Idol

One of the moments from elementary school that I will never forget are the times when we had to bring our favourite tunes to music class and have them reviewed with the whole class: we listened to maybe 5 or 6 songs during one class, and after listening everybody gave their points from 1-10 with a short explication. Like a poor version of "Juke Box Jury" ("Levyraati") on TV where they also showed the videos made for the song. Just as a sidenote, Wikipedia tells interesting facts on this show: in the UK they showed it only between 1959-1967, 1979 and 1989-1990, whereas in Finland (suomeksi) we liked it so much that it went on non-stop from 1961 to 2005. A classic TV show!

To get back to the topic: I remember bringing two songs to the school juke box jury, and both of them were completely demolished, both by the teacher and the other kids, with only a few exceptions, notably my friends who probably gave them better notes than they would have normally done. The other one was Enigma's "Return to Innocence" (I know...), and the other one was "7 seconds" by Youssou N'Dour & Neneh Cherry. Do I need to add that normally kids brought music such as American hard rock or Finnish pop? I guess it makes sense for me to have traveled and lived this much in weird countries after all the semi-etno stuff I was forcing others to listen when they were 12 years old...

My minor traumas from the elementary school music classes were, however, happily washed away a week ago, last Saturday. That afternoon I was given a possibility that was hard to believe: tickets to a "dinner-gala-concert" of Youssou N'Dour in a fancy hotel - for free. Later I heard that normally these tickets sell for 50.000 CFA (75 euros) each. Youssou - or "le vieux" (the old, a respectful name) or "le grand" (the great) as he's also referred to in Senegal - just released a new album "Dakar-Kingston" last week which combines reggae (the music style I love to hate) with Senegalese mbalax rhythms.

Although I felt quite out-of-place among all the glitzy upper class Senegalese people (me, another Finn and some random white guy where the only foreigners there) with their glittering dresses and impeccable suits by the swimming pool in the inner yard of the hotel, I enjoyed the concert enormously. I still hope to have another chance to see him in a more relaxed and intimate environment, hopefully in one of Dakar's clubs, or in his own night club Thiossane when he apparently performs frequently. Ba beneen yoon, Youssou ("à la prochaine / until next time")!


The end of a 17-year-long wait (although I have to admit that I never strived very actively to end this wait) - seeing Youssou N'Dour live on stage.


Fervent fans on stage - a man in a suit dancing here, later he gave his expensive-looking watch to Youssou to show his appreciation.



We were even ushered to take a photo together with Youssou after the concert, but he left the backstage too quicly...I'm not sure if I am relieved or disappointed of that.