Youssou N’Dour
Last night I had the privilege to see Youssou N’Dour live in concert at Zellerbach Hall. It was quite the experience, mainly because of the way it differed from the traditional American concerts that I am used to. To prepare for the concert I had watched about fifty minutes of I Bring What I Love, the documentary covering a part of his journey. I wish I had been able to finish the documentary, but even the small amount that I watched set the context quite well. I can say quite confidently that most Americans have never heard of the Grammy-winning artist, but around the world Youssou is famous, playing sold-out shows across Europe (granted, these were also years ago). The documentary also included some background, explaining the Senegalese tradition and style of griot, of storytelling through music, making me want to understand the lyrics and not just enjoy the sounds.
Youssou had no opener, only a hype-man to introduce him and that too for about 30 seconds. The hype-man would continue to pump up the crowd throughout the performance. Youssou went immediately to work, belting out one of the songs featured in IBWIL (Mame Bamba) in the first few songs.
About two songs in a woman ran onto the stage and danced for a few seconds before being escorted off by security. People jumping on stage and dancing would happen several more times throughout the concert, with varying levels of time spent onstage and institutional condone-ment. What was special is that people were dancing in the aisles from the very beginning. Youssou’s music is dancing music. From the aisles people slowly creeped closer and closer to the stage, until the tide could not be stopped. The auditorium became a general admission venue, like it was meant to be.
While I was initially slightly upset that the concert lasted close to two hours, I thought about the impact of this on the Senegalese community. I don’t know the other people in the audience, whether they were Senegalese themselves or just fans, but this experience made me remember a concert that I went to a long time ago, a concert that I had not thought about in several years.
Back in 2007 Sandeep and Salil, (relatively) famous Marathi singers, visited Los Angeles. My parents and I met them alongside several dozen other Marathi families at an Indian restaurant in Cerritos — not even a proper musical venue. What does seeing someone from your homeland, someone who sings in your language, mean to you? If I were separated from my home, I would never want the concert to end. Or maybe my emotions were just compromised by my recent experiences with beautiful, tearful immigrant stories (Aziz Ansari’s Master of None and Atticus Lish’s Preparation for the Next Life).
Music, also, should be communal. While of course not everyone can (or should) be able to get on stage, there should be some sort of interaction between the performer and the audience. Youssou invited people when he wanted to, and they left gladly as the song finished. As someone who had been touring for more than a decade, Youssou knew how to manage the crowd, and he did so with ease. I admired those who got on stage, and the camaraderie with the performers they were able to establish within seconds. Youssou also excelled at letting others in his crew take the stage, letting the audience applaud the drummers and dancers.
One other observation is that photography crosses generations. There were multitudes of older couples taking photos (with flash) to the annoyed grimaces of everyone in the vicinity. Some of these amateur photographers even took the shots with the crowd in the background, during the concert!— proper etiquette would be to at least wait until the concert finishes. Also, my eyes may have deceived me, but when an older woman was ‘let on’ to the stage near the end, I saw her give her phone to someone in the crowd, presumably to capture a photo of her. Maybe this was a result of the event turning from a performance to a concert. Maybe.
Ultimately, music from countries not the United States or Great Britain gets shafted, purely for linguistic reasons. The phrase ‘World Music’ should be banned. Music is so diverse and special and great that to relegate anybody as talented as Youssou N’Dour to a single broad undescriptive category is a travesty.
