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Youssou N’Dour ( Youssou Madjiguène)

Biography

Youssou N’Dour (French: [jusu (ɛ)nduʁ], Wolof: Yuusu Nduur; also known as Youssou Madjiguène Ndour;[2] born 1 October 1959) is a Senegalese singer, songwriter, musician, composer, occasional actor, businessman, and politician. In 2004, Rolling Stone described him as, “perhaps the most famous singer alive” in Senegal and much of Africa[3] and in 2023, the same publication ranked him at number 69 on its list of the 200 Greatest Singers of All Time.[4] From April 2012 to September 2013, he was Senegal’s Minister of Tourism. N’Dour helped develop a style of popular Senegalese music known by all Senegambians (including the Wolof) as mbalax, a genre that has sacred origins in the Serer[5][6] music njuup tradition and ndut initiation ceremonies.[5][6] He is the subject of the award-winning films Return to Gorée (2007) directed by Pierre-Yves Borgeaud and Youssou N’Dour: I Bring What I Love (2008) directed by Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi, which were released around the world. Ethnically,[8] N’Dour is Serer, born to a Serer father and a Toucouleur mother.[5][9] However, culturally, N’Dour is Wolof.[9] He was born in Dakar.[5] He started performing at age 12 and would later perform regularly with the Star Band, Dakar’s most popular group during the 1970s. Despite N’Dour’s maternal connection to the traditional griot caste, he was not raised in that tradition, which he learned instead from his sibling. Although patrilineally from the noble N’Dour family, his parents’ world-view encouraged a modern outlook, leaving him open to two cultures and thereby inspiring N’Dour’s identity as a modern griot. As a Mouride disciple, taalibé in Wolof, a Muslim of the Mouride brotherhood, one of the large four Sufi orders in Senegambia, he often incorporated aspects of Islamic music and chants into his work.

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N’Dour was nominated as Goodwill Ambassador of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) on 16 October 2000. In Senegal, N’Dour became a powerful cultural icon, actively involved in social issues. In 1985, he organized a concert for the release of Nelson Mandela. He was a featured performer in the 1988 worldwide Amnesty International Human Rights Now! Tour collaborating with Lou Reed on a version of the Peter Gabriel song “Biko” which was produced by Richard James Burgess and featured on the Amnesty International benefit album The Secret Policeman’s Third Ball. He worked with the United Nations and UNICEF, and he started Project Joko to open internet cafés in Africa and to connect Senegalese communities around the world.

Talent

Youssou N’Dour ( Youssou Madjiguène)

Biography

News / Ranking / Titbits / Awards

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