When early eighties the first Youssou N’Dour LP, ‘Immigrès/Bitim
rew’ reached me, I was astonished. What a different sound. After
some digging I found the LP he worked on before that, ‘Absa Gueye’.
Listen and find out what a treasure this is. Years later I went to a
Youssou N’Dour concert in ‘Nighttown’ Rotterdam, It was great
and as I left the building, some of the band’s people were selling
‘tama’s’ ( talking drums )at the corridor. 200 Dutch Guilders they
asked( in those days ), quite some money I thought. They were
friendly pushing me to buy the drum and told me they were made
by ‘Assane Thiam’, Youssou’s Tamaplayer. Wow, now I got really
interested, these were fine pieces of handicraft by the great ‘Assane’.
I said ;” okay, I’ll buy one if you have it signed by Youssou N’Dour”,
and so it went. LUCKY BASTARD I AM !The guy went away
with the talking drum and within 3 or 4 minutes he was back with
it, signed on one side by Youssou N’Dour, and on the other side
by ‘Assane Thiam’. To our surprise the whole group was sitting at
the nextdoor snackbar later, having fun and in a very relaxed
atmosphere, they were giving autographs
to everybody, supernice.

tracks;

1 Dom sou nare bakh
2 Jalo
3 Absa gueye
4 Mane kouma khol thi yao
5 N’guiro na
6 Baye wali
7 Esta China
8 Tu veras