Falou Dieng at Joe's Pub New York, August, 2007

By Evangeline Kim
Photos by Banning Eyre and Evangeline Kim
August 27, 2007

In 1999, the Stern’s label released one of the decade’s most intriguing African albums, Streets of Dakar, Generation Boul Falé, which showcased several of Senegal’s most promising new stars. One of the album’s most outstanding tracks, “Koleuré,” introduced for the first time to the outside world the great voice of Fallou Dieng, Dakar’s “King of Ambiance” and his DLC Band. 

In 2000, Stern’s released the group’s glorious Medina—a compilation of some of Fallou Dieng’s major hit tracks from earlier, locally released cassettes.  The album served up Fallou Dieng’s dynamic powers as a singer, composer, arranger and bandleader in classic, down-home-roots Senegalese musical styling known as “mbalax dur et pur” (hard and pure mbalax, the Senegaese pop genre based on sabar drumming).

Thanks to Birane Sarr and his New African Productions, Fallou Dieng and DLC Band members recently toured key U.S. cities where there are massive Senegalese community fans, starting in Harlem.  Word very quickly reached Bill Bragin, Director of downtown’s hip, chic Joe’s Pub that Fallou was in the country and a thrilling late night appearance by the group at the club was miraculously arranged at the last minute before his return home.

Fallou’s performance at Joe’s Pub gave downtown Manhattan a rare glimpse of a serenely charismatic star.  The son of a marabout (spiritual leader), he was named after the distinguished marabout, Serigne Fallou Mbacké, the son of Cheikh Amadou Bamba Mbacké, the legendary Sufi founder and leader of Mouridism. Certainly, this pedigree seems to have influenced Fallou’s magnificent onstage presence and bearing.

Well over six feet tall, most astonishing is this man’s utterly graceful and elegant manner of dancing as he sings and leads his fervently exuberant and exceptionally gifted young band members: Assane Seck – lead guitar, Djido Ba – bass, Vieux Hadj – keyboard, Aziz Diallo – keyboard marimbas, Moussa Nginge – drums, Sam Thiam – tama, Ndiaga Faye Ndiaye and Mamadou Ndiaye – sabar players.  The band zipped through a set of seriously good-for-your-soul music that continuously improvised and wove earlier favorite hit songs into Fallou’s current Feuk Dieuf album repertoire.  Over and over, there were thrashing climatic breaks, as tama, sabar and traps feverishly drove the soaring music higher and higher. 

Add the whirling, levitating, astounding, turbaned Mor Talla Samb, a phenomenal dancer whose voluminous blue robes ballooned with air whenever he managed to alight on the stage for just a few seconds, as he grinned and called out to an audience completely awestruck by such buoyant frenzy.  And then, the show was all over in a flash - to a cheering, thoroughly energized, stunned yet breathless crowd.

As if a cherished older brother, Fallou Dieng offers comfort to his siblings about life’s hardships, urges lasting friendships, touts the values of loyalty, trust, truth and integrity, praises his faith, and stresses the importance of fighting for true love – in a cultural milieu where arranged marriages are the norm.  An overall sense of well-being emanates from his sweetly gruff voice as he croons, implores and scats away in Wolof, Serer and Toucouleur, reaching out to Senegal’s various ethnicities.

It was no wonder that his Harlem Karate Club performance a few weeks earlier drew throngs of adulating young Senegalese expat fans who danced away until dawn. The band’s female dancer, the wild and provocatively amusing Kadia, appeared alongside Mor Talla, but returned home before the Joe’s Pub show.  When not on tour abroad, Fallou and DLC play every weekend to packed crowds at the Alizé Club in the Medina district of Dakar.

Years have passed that we’ve seen relatively few newer Senegalese singers or groups surface in the world music markets, apart from occasional hip-hop groups - but here is a real stand-out that whips up irresistibly good Senegalese roots music, layered with intense polyrhythmic textures and  brimming with ecstatic appeal.  We await more.

Contributed by: Evangeline Kim