Youssou N'Dour
Nacimiento : 1959-10-01, Dakar, Senegal
Historia
Youssou N'Dour (also known as Youssou Madjiguène Ndour; 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 and in 2023, the same publication ranked him at number 69 on its list of the 200 Greatest Singers of All Time. 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 music njuup tradition and ndut initiation ceremonies. 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.
In 2006, N'Dour was cast as Olaudah Equiano in the film Amazing Grace.
Ethnically, N'Dour is Serer, born to a Serer father and a Toucouleur mother. However, culturally, N'Dour is Wolof. He was born in Dakar. 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.
At the age of 15, Youssou N'Dour joined Super Diamono and, in 1975, toured with the band in West Africa.
In 1976 when N'Dour was 16 years old, he signed a contract to sing with Ibra Kasse's Star Band at Kasse's Miami club in Dakar where he would become a sensation.
In 1978, N'Dour would follow as several members of the Star Band left to form Étoile de Dakar, a band that made important contributions to Senegal's newly evolving musical style called mbalax which incorporated traditional Senegalese music into the Latin styles that had dominated Senegalese popular music. Although they quickly became one of the city's most popular bands, the group was short-lived due to internal problems. Étoile de Dakar split into two groups: Étoile 2000 and Super Étoile de Dakar. The latter group included N'Dour, guitarist Jimi Mbaye, bassist Habib Faye, and tama (talking drum) player Assane Thiam. Super Étoile de Dakar produced four albums on cassette in just a few months and eventually evolved into N'Dour's backing band.
By 1991, he had opened his own recording studio, and, by 1995, his own record label, Jololi. ...
Source: Article "Youssou N'Dour" from Wikipedia in English, licensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0.
Self - Musician (archive footage)
How African artists have spread African culture all over the world, especially music, since the harsh years of decolonization, trying to offer a nicer portrait of this amazing continent, historically known for tragic subjects, such as slavery, famine, war and political chaos.
Self
Self
In October 1987 after many months on the road, it was in the elevated surroundings of the hillside open-air theatre at Lycabettus overlooking Athens that the So tour came to a climactic close. The three nights were filmed in what was the first-ever Peter Gabriel concert to be committed to film.
Original Music Composer
In a war-torn African country, a small group of young people, led by Mão-de-Ferro, a traumatized and violent war child, arrive in a mysterious city where children, abandoned by adults, have created their own utopian republic.
Himself
Ocho cortos centrados en ocho historias alrededor del mundo. Ocho directores que plasman diversos problemas y contratiempos de la sociedad actual.
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Documental sobre Youssou N’Dour, la voz de Senegal, el músico africano más famoso de la historia. Sigue al músico creando su disco "Egypt", una exploración musical del islam. Este documental se estrenó en Europa a finales de noviembre en el International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam. Con este disco quiere demostrar que el islam no es una religión solamente para los árabes, también es la religión de muchos asiáticos y africanos.
Self
Because jazz is the miraculous product of the horror of slavery, Youssou N'Dour returned to the slave route and the music they created, in search of new inspiration. Accompanied by the blind Swiss pianist Moncef Genoud and the Director of the Gorée House of Slaves Museum, Joseph N'Diaye, the Senegalese singer wrote new songs during this initiatory voyage which took him to the USA then to Europe. At Gorée, an island just off the Senegalese coast and symbol of the slave trade, his memorable concert marked the end of this quest and the start of a new challenge: making today's generation aware of the tragedy of slavery, the importance of not forgetting and the need for reconciliation.
Olaudah Equiano
Sigue la vida de William Wilberforce, en su cruzada en el Parlamento para abolir la esclavitud en la Inglaterra de finales del siglo XVIII y principios del XIX.
Himself
On 2 July 2005 an estimated 3 billion people came together in the fight against extreme poverty. LIVE 8 - 10 concerts featuring over 1000 musicians from across the globe - asked people not for their money, but for their voice.
Himself
El 11 de Julio de 2004, más de 200.000 espectadores abarrotaban las calles del centro de Montreal para participar en una celebración única, un espectáculo exclusivo de una sola noche. Con más de 250 artistas, Midnight Sun es una brillante combinación de música y circo, la química perfecta entre la vista y el oído.
Original Music Composer
Kirikú es un niño muy pequeño que sabe exactamente lo que quiere incluso, antes de su nacimiento. Es independiente, generoso y valiente, cualidades que necesitará emplear a fondo porque Kirikú ha nacido en un poblado africano sobre el que la terrible y hermosa bruja Karabá ha extendido un maleficio: no hay flores, ni agua, tienen que entregarle tributos y no quedan hombres, porque según creen los habitantes del poblado, se los ha comido la bruja.
This production, mounted December 10, 1998, commemorates the 50th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, a milestone underscored with between-songs informational segments that succinctly promote the beneficiary's themes of tolerance and social responsibility. Filmed and live cameos mix celebrities with sage comments from the Dalai Lama (whose impish "thumbs up" to the crowd elevates the entire affair) and UN Secretary General Kofi Annan. An underlying fervor also sparks much of the music, particularly from Peter Gabriel, Youssou N'Dour, Tracy Chapman, and a solo Bruce Springsteen, whose songs all allude to the human rights agenda. Alanis Morissette's brief set likewise takes on a spiritual glow consistent with both her second solo album and the context at hand, while jubilant sets from Kassav and the Asian Dub Foundation serve as potent multicultural celebrations.
Short directed by Mansour Sora Wade.
Self
En 1991, la ONG Amnistía Internacional encargó 30 cortometrajes a 30 realizadores franceses, para montar un film colectivo que denunciara casos concretos de violación de los derechos humanos por razones políticas.
Self
An all-Gabriel performance featuring some of Gabriel's own 8mm work, personal footage from the two Amnesty International tours, a trip he took to the USSR and even home movies. Also live performances of "This Is the Picture," "Shock the Monkey," "Games Without Frontiers," "No Self Control," plus more. Executive produced by Martin Scorcese.
Music
Four junkyard kids go into town looking for something to cure their hero, Grand Batche. On the way, they come across various symbols of society: the cop, the mayor, the postman, the madman, the artist...
himself
Human rights now concert from Argentina, Estadio River Plate, Buenos Aires
Wembley Stadium hosts a concert featuring stars from the fields of music, comedy and film, in celebration of the 70th birthday of imprisoned ANC leader Nelson Mandela. Highlight of the evening is the one hour live performance of Dire Straits feat. Eric Clapton.
Himself
When the British Amnesty shows finally resumed in 1987 after a six-year hiatus, the show format was retooled in an effort to take advantage of the growing number of rock musicians supporting Amnesty. Instead of the live show being primarily a comedy show with a few musical cameos, the event made a point of giving equal emphasis to the comedy and the music.
Star Band de Dakar
El rico hombre de negocios El Hadji Abdoukader Beye celebra matrimonio con la tercera de sus esposas. La noche de bodas, para su espanto, descubre que ha caído sobre él la Xala, maleficio que le provoca impotencia sexual. A partir de ahí, la vida de El Hadji es trastornada. De una parte, necesita buscar alguna cura e incluso los negocios comienzan a hundirse.
Self
They have raged on for forty years, cutting a swath across continents and lighting the fuse of revolutionary thought. From the pressure-cooker ghettos of England to the mighty gates of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, one band has forged an enduring legacy. This is their story.
