Library Weekly

The ASCL's Library Weekly is our library’s weekly spotlight on African people and events. Inspired by the SciHiBlog, this service is based on information retrieved from Wikipedia and Wikidata and is completed with selected titles from the ASCL Library Catalogue.

N.B. The weeklies are not updated and reflect the state of information at a given point in time.

Library Weekly archive

Youssou N'Dour

Youssou N'Dour (Source: photograph by Henryk Kotowski) On 1 October 1959 the Senegalese singer, songwriter, musician, composer, occasional actor, businessman, and politician was born. N'Dour helped develop a style of popular Senegalese music known by all Senegambians (including the Wolof) as mbalax, a genre that has sacred origins in the Serer music njuup tradition and ndut initiation ceremonies. He is the subject of the award-winning film Return to Gorée (2007) directed by Pierre-Yves Borgeaud. In Senegal, N'Dour became a powerful cultural icon, actively involved in social issues.

At the beginning of 2012, he announced plans to stand as a candidate in the 2012 Senegalese presidential election, competing against President Abdoulaye Wade. However, he was disqualified from running in the election over the legitimacy of the signatures he had collected to endorse his campaign. N'Dour backed the opposition candidate Macky Sall, who defeated Wade in a second round of voting in March 2012. From April 2012 to September 2013, he was Senegal's Minister of Tourism.

(Source: Wikipedia accessed on 27 October, 2024)