Tag Archives: music

post-weekend update

Posted in le week-end, music, travel by

referendum_vote.jpg

I tried to post all my weekend links on Friday, then on Saturday, then on Sunday, but Senegal’s circa-1996 Internet had other plans. (This place has given me such a sharpened appreciation for the impact of the digital divide.) Oh well, at least now I can share a photo from yesterday’s referendum (my neighborhood polling station, above) and a video from the Cheikh Lo show at Just4U on Friday night:

Three thoughts:

  1. Latin-West African fusion has produced the most amazing sounds on the planet.
  2. Cheikh Lo and the thousands of other stately gentlemen walking around this city put America’s hipsters to shame. The combination of tunic, leather slippers, beanie, aviators, and ornate silver jewelry is just about the coolest thing I have ever seen. I don’t know why the Sartorialist hasn’t gotten around to visiting this place.
  3. I really do want to leave everything behind and learn how to play that over-the-shoulder/under-the-armpit drum.

The weekend is now over but here are some weekday reads. They are all from the New York Times, because now that I’ve traveled to a far reach of the planet, I can no longer travel to a far reach of the Internet.

Ugghhhghsfgkdfhgjkf$@#^$*#@^%!*#$(@&%.

Bilinguals have superior social skills. 

How to find a local guide when traveling solo.

Six of the ten least happy countries in the world are ones I am really hoping to travel to this year. :S

There are only two cruises I want to take: this one and the one that tours Alaskan glaciers with the elderly.

Americans: get yourselves to Cuba, stat. Look at this if you need convincing.

How to travel with an eye to settling down.

Have a good week! As for me, I’ll be returning to Kaolack tomorrow to shoot some pick-ups in the 100 degree heat, yippie!

 

the catchiest song ever

Posted in French, music by

Care of my brother, who plays it for my niece. I can’t wait til the day she attempts to sing along.

(Get over the) hump day inspiration: fun French music

Posted in French, music by

Indochine in concertA compendium of the French music that has been introduced to me over the course of my twenty years (on and off) of studying the language:

Indochine

My first year of French, in eighth grade, the teacher would start each class with a few songs from one of her French albums. She played them on an actual record player, which is how I know it really was a long time ago. Indochine is the only music I still remember from that year. I loved it because it took me on a nostalgic trip back to the new wave of my 80’s childhood, but at the same time it was completely new and catchy to me. Call me crazy / 47 years old, but I do really think Indochine makes good music.

Here’s the album my teacher would play for us. My favorite song was and still is “Tes Yeux Noir (scroll forward to 35:47):

Diam and Koxie 

In grad school I took a French class after ten years without formal – or really, any – study. For one looong and humbling semester I endured the snarky looks of barely-adult undergrads who had no patience for my halting mangled French. I made friends instead with the one other grad student (who also spoke much better French than I did – I was the worst in the class by a long shot). The one favor those haughty undergrads did for me was to introduce me to Diam and Koxie, both woman rappers of immigrant ancestry. At a recent Meetup I learned from the Togolese guy that Diam wears the hijab now and has stopped making music. Perhaps the two things are related, perhaps not – I leave that to you to Google if the spirit moves you.

Diam:

Koxie:

At another recent Meetup, Kery James was another French rapper recommended to me:

And at yet another one, I was told to listen to MC Solaar:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-n8kGW16RYs

And just for fun, since this has become a list dominated by French rappers, here’s a song from the (highly derivative) Busta Flex album I bought pretty much at random the year I studied abroad in Ireland and spent a day in Paris on spring break:

For good measure, a beautiful / spunky / easy-to-follow-even-if-you-speak-terrible-French song that Emmanuel sent to me, by Françoiz Breut:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZ4HNmzsQns

What do you think?

(Photo of Indochine doing the we-can-still-rock-in-middle-age thing: Laurent Breillat)

youssou

Posted in French, inspiration & encouragement, le week-end, music, travel by

Youssou N'Dour at BAM

Over the weekend I saw Youssou N’Dour perform in Brooklyn. I don’t say this lightly: it was transportive. The music is so overwhelmingly life-affirming, and I’m chomping at the bit to go to Senegal. So I spent the entire show alternately blissing out in the moment and imagining myself living in Dakar in the near future, making a weekend routine of going out to dance to West African music.

The band kept announcing him as the “minister of the people” but I would more aptly call N’Dour the minister of tourism because within minutes of his arrival onstage I was ready to pack up and go.* Lo and behold, I just looked up his discography and he is indeed Senegal’s minister of tourism and culture as of 2012! That is both hilarious and entirely appropriate.

Sometimes I think I’m going to wimp out on my language sabbatical but then a night like Saturday’s reminds me of how much fun I will have and eradicates the fear. In fact, I spent a good part of the show wallowing in fantasy-land “logistics” planning: I’d move to Senegal next November and spend the winter months learning French eight hours a day, then visit every country in West Africa after becoming proficient, next head south to Zimbabwe and South Africa just because, then cut back up to Rwanda, then turn east into Tanzania and Kenya, and finally somehow end up in the south of France in time for summer. Oh, and there’d also magically be time and money for Mozambique and Madagascar. And then I’d move to South America for Spanish immersion.

It’s good to dream… And eventually, when the time is ripe, I will become a bit more realistic about my dreams and turn them into reality. (With God as my witness.)

* pending Ebola neutralization

I leave you with a clip from the show, taken by someone with a much better seat than mine!