[.ca] Lion

From Amazon.co.uk:
For much of the world, this was the first opportunity to hear Senegalese singer Youssou N'Dour. Championed by Peter Gabriel (who appears here on "Shaking The Tree"), he burst into public consciousness with the frantic mbalax rhythms of the title track, dedicated to Senegal's soccer team. The producers, including David Sancious, added some gloss to the sound without killing the thrill of songs like "The Truth". N'Dour's wonderful voice, with its high, keening griot sound, was firmly front and centre--exactly where it should be. While the music was toned down a little for Western audiences, it remained firmly grounded in the streets of N'Dour's Dakar, powered along by the inventive drumming of Manu Katché. You could aptly call this the birth of a superstar with N'Dour showing himself capable and ready to walk into the hearts of people around the world as one of the great voices. --Chris Nickson

Chronique amazon.fr:
Le merveilleux chanteur sénégalais Youssou N'Dour faisait un tabac en 1989 avec la sortie de l'album The Lion. Quelques mois après la tournée mondiale d'Amnesty International en compagnie de Sting, Tracy Chapman, Bruce Sprinsteen et de son fidèle ami, Peter Gabriel, Youssou N'Dour livre avec cet opus quelques-uns de ses plus grands tubes : "Gaiende" (le lion en ouoloff, sa langue natale), "Immigrés" et "Shaking The Tree" sur lequel intervient Peter Gabriel. Sa voix extraordinaire servie par d'excellents musiciens et un style aux confluents du jazz, du funk et de la soul sur une rythmique mbalax (la musique nationale du Sénégal) a depuis cette époque conquis la planète entière et a même donné une couleur musicale à la Coupe du Monde 98. --Sylvie Clerfeuille

A masterpiece:
Salif Keita won international acclaim in 1987 with his masterpiece Soro, a brilliant fusion of the Malian musical tradition with modern technology. The follow-up, Ko-Yan, was disappointing since his voice seemed to have been sacrificed to insensitive production. It's therefore a relief to report that Amen was a great return to form, featuring highly melodic, hook-filled tracks with a sense of space, variety and dance friendly beats in which that mellifluous voice comes into its own. The tracks address contemporary issues such as the quest for democracy in West Africa in the song Waraya, but there are also beautiful love songs like the buoyant Yele N Na, the rousing Karifa and the trilingual N B'i Fe. Throughout the album, producer Joe Zawinul harmoniously reconciles Keita's voice with breezy arrangements and the technical expertise of the jazz fusionists who assisted Keita in creating this riveting slab of sound. The tasteful packaging includes French and English translations of the lyrics.

This album is excellent!!!:
The music is wonderful. Also, the words to the songs are very insightful. Youssou's voice is great!!

The breakthrough album:
This was the album that gave N'Dour an international audience. It opens with the lilting The Lion/Gaiende, followed by the soulful Shakin' The Tree where Peter Gabriel contributes vocals, the lively, fast-paced Kocc Barma and Bamako, a jazzy track. Old Tucson has a charming R & B flavor, Macoy is atmospheric and subdued, while Sama Doom is another polirhythmic delight. N'Dour sings in both English and Wolof, his native language, but his voice is so expressive that language doesn't matter much. The instrumentation and backing vocals are elegant and graceful throughout - full marks for expert production. The Lion is very accessible, without compromising the integrity of the artist's roots, a highly successful fusion of Western and African.

I'd like to mention...:
Youssou N`dour is a unique phenomenon in modern music. And the opinion that modern western consumers have about him is not right. The exorbitant success of "7 Seconds"/w Neneh Cherry and collaboration with Peter Gabriel gave him a fame of a professional back-vocalist, peculiar "traditional pop-music" with ethnical salt. (As a rule nobody pays special attention to the text especially if it's performed in an unknown Wolof language.) Western producers usually incline to start with simple things (cut out or make softer everything that is unusual), to distil sound and to use the temporary band consisting of typical studio professionals who can't improvise themselves. The album "The Lion/Gaiende" which I'm going to speak on is the victim of such an approach though it's worth it. But a snobbish pejorative attitude of the critics to this album seems to me injust too. I might be partial `cause my love for Youssou N`dour, and "ethno-music" in general, started with this recording. But I'd like to mention... The album is uneven and it's hard to listen to the whole of it. Psychologically, the most important central part is given two rather colorless westernized pop-songs - "The Truth" and "Old Tucson". The more interesting versions are "Bes" and "Sama Doom (My Daughter)". The latter - a fusion of American jazz (that is David Sancious's saxophone solo efficiently dubbed into the texture) and mbalax style created by Youssou and other modern Senegal musicians efforts - was performed with sincere warmth. Remix of Peter Gabriel's famous "Shakin` The Tree"/w author appeared for two reasons: the producer` wish to bind a unknown singer with a star and Youssou N`dour's acknowledgement to Peter Gabriel who did his best to popularize modern ethnical music (DIEURE DIEUF Peter Gabriel). "The Lion/Gaiende" and "Kocc Barma" are two examples of pure mbalax with wonderfully recorded tama (a talking drum), and sabar-drum rhythm tracks. "The Lion" at that is the perfect composition for studying and explaining the musical basic of the style and the acoustic role of separate instruments. And now for real masterpieces of that album - Bamako and Macoy... The first song is a hard-felt story over a fleeting meeting with a girl in Bamako. Overdubbing of vocal tracks is fantastic. Macoy - powerful ethno-hymn with all the style components in western understanding: the wall of synthesized sound, endless overdubbing, female choir and arrangement influenced by Peter Gabriel. The way Youssou N`dour makes of his voice out of this set is unbelievable. The song gains a certain depth, definite pain and passion. These songs still leave in your heart which, in fact, is main reason for listening to music.

• Lion/Gaiende
• Shaking the Tree
• Kocc Barma
• Bamako
• Truth
• Old Tucson
• Macoy
• My Daughter (Sama Doom)
• Bes