Egypt
-
79694
Track Listing
-
16:10
-
25:30
-
34:58
-
45:45
-
55:18
-
63:51
-
73:35
-
85:50
News & Reviews
-
Celebrate Brooklyn!—one of New York City's longest running, free, outdoor performing arts festivals—has announced the complete line-up for this summer's concert series in Brooklyn's Prospect Park. Among the featured performers this year are several artists familiar to readers of the Nonesuch Journal: Lake Street Dive, Conor Oberst, Fleet Foxes, Sam Amidon, Amadou & Mariam, and Youssou N'Dour.
Senegalese superstar Youssou N'Dour kicks off a rare, two-week tour of North America, starting at Terminal 5 in New York City this Sunday night. The tour then heads west for shows in Boulder, Mesa, Los Angeles, Berkeley, Seattle, and Vancouver, before returning east for stops in Montreal, Toronto, Ann Arbor, and Columbus.
-
About This Album
2004 Grammy Award Winner
While Youssou N’Dour’s international releases have always combined Senegalese musical traditions with outside sources of inspiration, Egypt takes a fresh approach; on this album, the rhythms and melodies of Senegal drive arrangements featuring Egyptian and Arabian orchestral sounds. Featuring traditional musicians in Dakar and in Cairo, Egypt’s lyrics demonstrate a distinctly Senegalese way of Islam, and of Sufi thought and practice, with references to venerated caliphs, saints, and sages. The making of the album, and the public's reaction to it, has now been documented in the award-winning film Youssou N'Dour: I Bring What I Love, by director Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi; you can watch the trailer for the film at nonesuch.com/media.Muslim life in Senegal is centered in the country’s Sufi communities, which have adapted to the modern rhythms of post-independence Africa. N’Dour, who sought to explore the links between his homeland’s religious beliefs and that of Muslims in Egypt and the Middle East, has explained that Egypt is an album that “praises the tolerance of my religion”—a religion that in recent times has come to be both misunderstood and misinterpreted by commentators and adherents alike.
The New York Times has called N’Dour “one of the world’s greatest singers” and has described his voice as an “arresting tenor, a supple weapon deployed with prophetic authority.” Renowned for his remarkable range and poise and for his prodigious musical intelligence as a writer, bandleader, and producer, N’Dour absorbs the entire Senegalese musical spectrum in his work, often filtering this through the lens of genre-defying rock or pop music from outside his culture. N’Dour has made mbalax—a blend of Senegal’s traditional griot percussion and praise-singing with Afro-Cuban music—famous throughout the world during more than twenty years of recording and touring outside of Senegal with his band, The Super Étoile.
Credits
MUSICIANS
Youssou N’Dour, lead vocals
Kabou Guèye, backing vocals
Souka Guèye, backing vocals
Mama Guèye, backing vocals
Babou Laye, kora (West African harp-lute)
Mbaye Dieye Faye, various Senegalese percussion
Beugue Fallou Ensemble, various Senegalese percussion and backing vocals
The Fathy Salama Orchestra, featuring:
Fathy Salama, arranger and conductor
Yuri Kablotsky, Midhat Abd El Sameeh, first violin
Mamdouh El Gibally, oud (Arab lute)
Abdallah Helmy, kawala (Egyptian oblique flute)
Mostafa Abd El Azeez, arghul (Egyptian double-reed bamboo wind instrument)
Shaker, rababa (two-stringed Arab fiddle)
Shibl, magruna (Egyptian double-reed bamboo wind instrument)
Hasaneen Hindy, mizmar (Egyptian double-reed bell-shaped wind instrument)
Ramadan Mansoor, tabla (Egyptian hand drum)
Ayman Sidky, doholla (Egyptian hand drum, bass tabla)
Ahmed El Gazar, sagat (Egyptian hand cymbals)
Yaser Mal Allah, various Arab Gulf percussion
Bisheer Ewees, bass violin
Vassily, bass violin
Hassan Khaleel, score managerPRODUCTION CREDITS
Produced by Youssou N’Dour & Fathy Salama
Recorded at Hany Mihanna Studio (Cairo) by Khalid Ra’ouf and at Mix Studio (Cairo) by Alaa El-Kashif;
and at Studio Xippi (Dakar) by Segui Niang and Ndiaga N’Dour
Mixed by Philippe Brun at Mrs. Jones Productions (Paris)
Mastered by Robert C. Ludwig at Gateway Mastering Studios, Portland, Maine
All songs written by Youssou N’Dour/Kabou Guèye
Design by Frank Olinsky
Photography by Véronique Rolland
Executive Producer: Birame Ndiaye
More From
On this lushly orchestrated disc, winner of the Grammy for Best Contemporary World Music, N’Dour explores his Senegalese Islamic faith. The Washington Post says N’Dour “sets out to prove that Islam can inspire music of surpassing beauty and welcoming gentleness. He succeeds admirably.”
2004 Grammy Award Winner
While Youssou N’Dour’s international releases have always combined Senegalese musical traditions with outside sources of inspiration, Egypt takes a fresh approach; on this album, the rhythms and melodies of Senegal drive arrangements featuring Egyptian and Arabian orchestral sounds. Featuring traditional musicians in Dakar and in Cairo, Egypt’s lyrics demonstrate a distinctly Senegalese way of Islam, and of Sufi thought and practice, with references to venerated caliphs, saints, and sages. The making of the album, and the public's reaction to it, has now been documented in the award-winning film Youssou N'Dour: I Bring What I Love, by director Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi; you can watch the trailer for the film at nonesuch.com/media.
Muslim life in Senegal is centered in the country’s Sufi communities, which have adapted to the modern rhythms of post-independence Africa. N’Dour, who sought to explore the links between his homeland’s religious beliefs and that of Muslims in Egypt and the Middle East, has explained that Egypt is an album that “praises the tolerance of my religion”—a religion that in recent times has come to be both misunderstood and misinterpreted by commentators and adherents alike.
The New York Times has called N’Dour “one of the world’s greatest singers” and has described his voice as an “arresting tenor, a supple weapon deployed with prophetic authority.” Renowned for his remarkable range and poise and for his prodigious musical intelligence as a writer, bandleader, and producer, N’Dour absorbs the entire Senegalese musical spectrum in his work, often filtering this through the lens of genre-defying rock or pop music from outside his culture. N’Dour has made mbalax—a blend of Senegal’s traditional griot percussion and praise-singing with Afro-Cuban music—famous throughout the world during more than twenty years of recording and touring outside of Senegal with his band, The Super Étoile.
PRODUCTION CREDITS
Produced by Youssou N’Dour & Fathy Salama
Recorded at Hany Mihanna Studio (Cairo) by Khalid Ra’ouf and at Mix Studio (Cairo) by Alaa El-Kashif;
and at Studio Xippi (Dakar) by Segui Niang and Ndiaga N’Dour
Mixed by Philippe Brun at Mrs. Jones Productions (Paris)
Mastered by Robert C. Ludwig at Gateway Mastering Studios, Portland, Maine
All songs written by Youssou N’Dour/Kabou Guèye
Design by Frank Olinsky
Photography by Véronique Rolland
Executive Producer: Birame Ndiaye

79694
MUSICIANS
Youssou N’Dour, lead vocals
Kabou Guèye, backing vocals
Souka Guèye, backing vocals
Mama Guèye, backing vocals
Babou Laye, kora (West African harp-lute)
Mbaye Dieye Faye, various Senegalese percussion
Beugue Fallou Ensemble, various Senegalese percussion and backing vocals
The Fathy Salama Orchestra, featuring:
Fathy Salama, arranger and conductor
Yuri Kablotsky, Midhat Abd El Sameeh, first violin
Mamdouh El Gibally, oud (Arab lute)
Abdallah Helmy, kawala (Egyptian oblique flute)
Mostafa Abd El Azeez, arghul (Egyptian double-reed bamboo wind instrument)
Shaker, rababa (two-stringed Arab fiddle)
Shibl, magruna (Egyptian double-reed bamboo wind instrument)
Hasaneen Hindy, mizmar (Egyptian double-reed bell-shaped wind instrument)
Ramadan Mansoor, tabla (Egyptian hand drum)
Ayman Sidky, doholla (Egyptian hand drum, bass tabla)
Ahmed El Gazar, sagat (Egyptian hand cymbals)
Yaser Mal Allah, various Arab Gulf percussion
Bisheer Ewees, bass violin
Vassily, bass violin
Hassan Khaleel, score manager