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Mbalax: Cosmopolitanism in Senegalese Urban Popular Music Timothy Roark Mangin Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY 2013 © 2013 Timothy Roark Mangin All rights reserved ABSTRACT Mbalax: Cosmopolitanism in Senegalese Urban Popular Music Timothy Roark Mangin This dissertation is an ethnographic and historical examination of Senegalese modern identity and cosmopolitanism through urban dance music. My central argument is that local popular culture thrives not in spite of transnational influences and processes, but as a result of a Senegalese cosmopolitanism that has long valued the borrowing and integration of foreign ideas, cultural practices, and material culture into local lifeways. My research focuses on the articulation of cosmopolitanism through mbalax, an urban dance music distinct to Senegal and valued by musicians and fans for its ability to shape, produce, re-produce, and articulate overlapping ideas of their ethnic, racial, generational, gendered, religious, and national identities. Specifically, I concentrate on the practice of black, Muslim, and Wolof identities that Senegalese urban dance music articulates most consistently. The majority of my fieldwork was carried out in the nightclubs and neighborhoods in Dakar, the capital city. I performed with different mbalax groups and witnessed how the practices of Wolofness, blackness, and Sufism layered and intersected to articulate a modern Senegalese identity, or Senegaleseness. This ethnographic work was complimented by research in recording studios, television studios, radio stations, and research institutions throughout Senegal. The dissertation begins with an historical inquiry into the foundations of Senegalese cosmopolitanism from precolonial Senegambia and the spread of Wolof hegemony, to colonial Dakar and the rise of a distinctive urban Senegalese identity that set the proximate conditions for the postcolonial cultural policy of Négritude and mbalax. Subsequent chapters focus on the practices of Wolofness, Sufism, and blackness articulated in mbalax. Table of Contents Table of Contents……………………….………………………………………………..i List of Figures…………..,.……………………..……………………………………….ii Acknowledgements………………………….………………………………………….iii Dedication………………………………..…………………………………….………..v Chapter 1: Introduction………………………………………..………..………………..1 Chapter 2: Cosmopolitan Foundations, Dakar, and Negritude…………………………44 Chapter 3: Mbalax and Wolofness…………………………………..………………….92 Chapter 4: Senegalese Sufism in Mbalax……………………………..……………….161 Chapter 5: The Cosmopolitanism of Jazz and Mbalax …………………..…………....198 Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………..234 References …………………...........................…………………………………….…..244 Appendices …………………………………………………………………………….256 i List of Figures Figure 1. Transcription of “Kaolack” sabar rhythm. Figure 2. Transcription of “Ceebu Jen” sabar rhythm. Figure 3. Senegambian castes or social orders. Figure 4. Dancer performing mulay cegeen at a Ceddo event. Figure 5. Salam Diallo and dancer at a soiree Sénégalaise . Figure 6. Baye Fall drummers and dancer at soirée Sénégalaise , Alizé nightclub. Figure 7. Baye Fall performing zikr. Figure 8. “Zikroulah” transcription. ii Acknowledgements This dissertation would not have been possible without the help, friendship, and téranga of the many Senegalese who contributed to this project. Fallou Gaye, my first Wolof teacher, and his brother Cheikh found me housing on my first research trip to Dakar and Saint-Louis. Bakary Diallo, Amy Guindo, and Moussou Diallo graciously welcomed me into their home. Amy and Moussou taught me urban Wolof and took me to sabars, weddings, birthdays, baptisms, their natal home Mboolum, and taught me about family life, responsibility, elder respect, and perseverance. The rappers Black Mboolo were my HLM compatriots and introduction to Senegal’s hip hop scene and street life. Njankou Sembene and Dieuf Dieul taught me the rudiments of mbalax, Doudou Sow and Number One Plus introduced me to salsa-mbalax, and Groupe Ceddo showed me how to dance and play afro-mbalax. There are many musicians, producers, DJs, rappers, scholars and dancers who helped me along the way including Marious Gouané, the staff and residents of Mt. Holyoke house, Seydou Fall, Mac Faye, Paper Niang, Mac Fallows, Andy Shafte, Abdoulaye N’Diaye, Wa-BMG-44, Duggy Tee, Didier Awadi, Cheikh Ndigal Lo, Suleyman Faye, and Salaam Diallo. The friendship of brothers Ababacar and Lamine Fall remains a blessing. I want to also thank my Senegalese cohort of musicians, friends and scholars in New York City. Funding for my research was provided by FLAS, Fulbright-Hayes fellowship, Sawyer Seminar in Predoctoral Fellowship in Globalizing Cities, Summer Mellon Grant, Fredric Zeller Memorial Fellowship, and George Edmund Hayes Fellowship. At Columbia University the Institute for Research in African American Studies and Institute of African Studies provided amazing seminars, talks, and a breath of fresh air. My mentor, Manning Marble was an inspiration and helped me bring together my interest in history with popular culture. Professors George Bond and Robert O’Meally always inspired iii through grace, integrity, and intellectual pursuits that enriched many lives at Columbia. The faculty in the Music Department strongly supported my work and provided an environment for intellectual growth. I am grateful to Aaron Fox for his continued support of my project and stewardship of the Ethnomusicology program. My dissertation committee was remarkable. Christopher Washburne’s professionalism, musicianship, intellectual curiosity, and steady presence has been a boon to us all in the program. I am tremendously grateful and honored that professors Ana Maria Ochoa and Brian Larkin sat on my committee. Their scholarship and kindness set high standards for those of us pursuing careers in academia. I first met Prof. Mamadou Diouf when I was a young researcher in Dakar and had hair. Back then he was gracious and intellectually adventurous and still is. His leadership of the African Studies program has breathed vitality and life back into the program. Professor George Lewis, my sponsor, has been a brilliant and engaging steward during the final year of this project. His comments and suggestions have been insightful and provocative. I will truly miss our conversations. My final thanks goes to my family and friends who’ve been incredibly patient and done so much to help me finish. To Robin Klein and Anne Johnson, thank you for getting me started on this road. Thanks to Sharon Calandra and Anoosh Jorjoorian for their critical eyes on early drafts. Paul Weathered and Claudia Sidoti provided hospitality, humor, food, drink, a couch to crash on, and lots of warmth. Thank you Andrea Nouryeh, Valerie Ingram, Margaret Bass, and the faculty of St. Lawrence University for your friendship and support. Anastasia Fischer’s generosity was unsurpassed and came at a much-needed time. I am deeply thankful for Susanne Bunzel’s reading of early drafts, warmth, and friendship. Donna Brindle’s steadfast support and humor helped me though many challenges. My mother’s support was unwavering, inspirational, and cherished, my father’s encouragement welcome, and my family’s warmth a refuge. iv Dedication To the memory of my brother Calvin Mangin v 1 Chapter 1 Introduction A Night of Mbalax It is a Sunday evening in July 7 1999, at the Sahel nightclub in the Medina, the neighborhood that Dakarois (residents of Dakar) consider the heart of urban African culture and traditions. It is the quartier where mbalax has flourished since its musique moderne inception in the late 1960s and where the Sahel, the first venue built to showcase mbalax has been a fixture since the mid-1970s. I am here with Jean, a man in his mid-twenties who’s Catholic, literate, and entrepreneurial. We met through a mutual acquaintance, an American jazz musician who is sponsoring Jean’s sister for her college education and housing in the United States. Outside the club, Jean and I join three of his friends—also in their mid- to late twenties—and, like many Senegalese I've come to know, flush with cosmopolitan connections: friends and relatives living, studying, or working abroad who bring back goods, ideas, remittances, and new ways of living. Tonight, Sahel features Thione Seck, one of mbalax’s pioneer musicians, and his group Raam Daan—a name that plays on both the Muslim Ramadan season of fasting and the Wolof phrase meaning, “in order to achieve your goals, you must proceed slowly and deliberately.” Seck is known as a singer able to fuse “traditional” and “modern” styles within an aesthetic that appeals to Senegalese across generations. Seck’s “traditional” reputation and techniques derive from his Wolof griot (géwël) heritage: his ancestors’ famous service as griots to Lat Dior, the nineteenth-century King of Cayor, whose Wolof kingdom was one of the last to battle French colonial forces. Griots are an 2 endogamous caste of praise singers, musicians, drummers, and dancers who extol genealogies, recount histories, and mediate disputes. Before colonialism, they served royal and prominent families. Today, Thione Seck fulfills his duties as a griot for the general population through his heavily percussive mbalax pur et dur style (“pure” and “hard” mbalax) where his vocal techniques fuse traditional Senegalese griot music with Afro-Cuban salsa (son montunos, cha-chas, rumbas, mambos), American soul, and Bollywood