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Etoile de Dakar featuring Youssou N'Dour Once Upon A Time In Senegal: The Birth Of Mbalax 1979-1981 (Stern's Music) 2 CDs There are not many African artists whose names are as well-known as Youssou N’Dour’s. And it’s not just his ‘7 Seconds’ duet with Neneh Cherry, or his frequent collaborations with Peter Gabriel and others. No, you don’t reach his status just by who you hang out with, you get there by who you are and what you do. On one level these 2 CDs form a chapter in the story of who Youssou N’Dour is. But on another they show him simply as an equal member of a band … a band in the right place at the right time and doing the right things. That brief but vital moment in time is captured in these 23 tracks selected from the cassettes that Etoile de Dakar recorded between 1979 and 1981. Several have never been released outside of Senegal, and all have been sensitively re-mastered from the earliest available audio source. These are the best sounding recordings of this material available. Listen to samples of all tracks

From the Guardian, UK: This is the second outstanding Youssou N'Dour album released this year. First came I Bring What I Love, with its live reworking of songs from across his career. Now follows this two-CD set chronicling "the Birth of Mbalax 1979-81" and the history of the band that launched N'Dour's career, before he left with other musicians to form Super Etoile. In the Etoile era, Senegalese music was in transition, and the songs here include echoes of lilting African-Cuban fusions made famous earlier by Orchestra Baobab, along with bursts of western-influenced psychedelia (listen to the wailing guitar work on Tolou Badou Ndiaye), and of course the new driving Mbalax style, with its emphasis on the tama talking drum. The young N'Dour was just one of the lead vocalists and songwriters with this band, and can be heard performing alongside El Hadji Faye and the late Eric M'Backe N'Doye, two sturdy singers who would never match his success. N'Dour was already in a league of his own, as shown by his thrilling, declamatory performances on M'Badane, or the intense and commanding Sama Guenth-Gui. It's an impressive compilation that's helped by the remastering of the original recordings, and by well-researched sleeve notes.

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