This week’s travel dream: The sweet rhythms of Senegal

Senegal’s capital is one of the “most musically vibrant cities” in the world, said Seth Sherwood in The New York Times. Though not typically the first stop for Americans making a trek to Africa, the “gritty concrete metropolis” of Dakar is home to some of Africa’s biggest stars, from Youssou N’Dour to hip-hop’s new arrival Akon. Mbalax—the “propulsive, percussive, melodic pop” that N’Dour popularized in the 1970s—remains the country’s dominant sound, but musicians have since begun to incorporate salsa, reggae, bossa nova, jazz, and rap into the city’s “tuneful bounty.” The musicians in this colorful capital “serve up a remarkably diverse sonic smorgasbord” nearly every night of the week.

“Set against the glittering Atlantic,” the West African city is a crowded, chaotic grid of “French-built boulevards and crumbling narrow streets.” During the day, “gleaming Mercedes-Benzes crawl behind disintegrating jalopies and men pushing wheelbarrows.” Only at night, I found, is the city transformed into a “living jukebox of sounds.” Hordes of locals flock to musical venues like Just4U and the beautiful Club Baobab. One night at Club Baobab, I watched as bodies started swaying to the music. Women in bright native dresses shimmied by, smiling, while a Senegalese hipster in “Malcolm X glasses and impeccable threads” spun his date. The grooves felt “as tropical as the night air: warm, up-tempo, lushly orchestrated, full of rich horn riffs and rock-steady guitar-strumming.”

For my next night out, the scene was different, but the music just as magnetic. “Tweedy intellectuals from foreign embassies” and workers from nongovernmental agencies in their “ethno-chic outfits” peppered the crowd that filled the outdoor amphitheater at L’Institut Français Léopold Sédar Senghor, a cultural center in downtown Dakar. A French-Cameroonian vocalist named Imany took the stage and cooed over Brazilian acoustic guitar and softly brushed snare drums. As I watched the stars above “glimmer in the African night,” the bittersweet melody floated over the enraptured crowd. Another day, “another sublime Dakar musical moment.”

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Contact: Au-senegal.com