Omar Pene et le Super Diamono

 Myamba

“This is an album of a true songwriter whose music is profoundly human”. French producer Oliver Bloch-Lainé thus summed up the fruits of this collaboration with veteran singer Omar Pene. “Myamba” expresses a new variant of Senegal’s most popular music form Pene himself calls “cool mbalax”. “I tried to bring out what is most powerful and touching in Omar’s soft voice,” explains Bloch-Lainé. “It boils down to the powerful musicality of his dialogue with the drums.”

At the same time, Pene remains consistent with his social engagement at the side of the downtrodden in Africa: a child victim of a polygamous relationship, a woman saying farewell before emigrating to the perilous North, a worker overwhelmed by the hardships of his job. “Life is a lot harder than when I was young,” the 50-year-old confided to me in his elegant Dakar home. “So I hold back no punches. Africans must extricate themselves from this situation. We have to talk about the daily realities of 90% of the people here…With my music I try to be of some comfort to my public by showing that I am not indifferent to the difficulties they face. And the authorities,” he adds, pointing to a picture behind him of Prime Minister Macky Sall clasping Omar’s hand,” the authorities have now become aware of how important we are as teachers and guides, and they are helping us.”

Pene’s musical efforts to allay the anguishes of dire poverty around him are buoyed by the warm timbre of his voice. There is a proximity to that luminous voice of his which is amplified by the soft yet insistent use of percussions. These are ably handled by Papa N’Diaye Rose, one of several musicians he calls on from the Super Diamono band,. Pene’s penetrating vocals are also enhanced by the two backing voices, Dieynaba Koité and Diarra Gueye. Their melodic harmonies give a peculiar resonance to the songs that make them irresistible.

“Myamba” is essentially an acoustic album, (yet another! This tendency continues to make inroads into the “world music” scene driven as it is by economic prerogatives – it’s cheaper to tour with only a handful of artists). Yet, the hard-driving 6/8 mbalax rhythm surfaces with a regularity that will please Pene’s Senegalese following. “Sa Jikko Ji” and “Mon mari” aim at seducing his large fan base despite the songs’ minimalist instrumentation. Still, it is the album’s musical diversity, rooted in African folk, that most impresses. The title track almost has a bossa feel, while “Liberté” reminds listeners of the Congolese and Cuban roots to traditional mbalax. And the “cool” element of this typically Senegalese style is bound to remind music lovers of cool jazz, an atmosphere that hangs, tantalisingly, over a CD that has its place in all music libraries.

April 20, 2005
Daniel Brown