Nothing's in Vain (Coono du Réér)

by

Youssou N'Dour

Edit

When you read the reviews of this album on this website, you realize how, despite the cachet of "world music," nothing has really changed. Youssou is criticized for not being "African" enough. For using "cheesy" string arrangements (remember what people said about Parker with strings?) In fact, this is beautiful music. If you understand the lyrics (sorry, non-Francophone or non-Arabic white consumers), you realize that this is legitimate, heartfelt African music. No one says that in contrast with the romantic garbage puryveyed and hyped by American musicians, this is music that is both wonderful to hear and difficult to understand. Perhaps, in a hundred years, Western listeners will be able to appreciate what non-Westerners have to say, without labeling them as not non-Western enough for their "exotic" sensibilities, not anti-Romatic enough to satisfy their appetite for cynicsm. If Euro-American art has been absorbing African influences for a century or more, why shouldn't African artists absorb Western influences? Whites would shudder in horror if Youssou or some other African recorded happy Como Christmas songs. It would disturb their ideas of black suffering, of which they have become conoisseurs. Buy this album and enjoy it if you have a brain in your head. If you don't, I feel sorry for you.