| The Lion | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
 | ||||
| Studio album by | ||||
| Released | 1989 | |||
| Genre | Mbalax [1] | |||
| Label | Virgin Records | |||
| Producer | David Sancious, George Acogny, Peter Gabriel | |||
| Youssou N'Dour chronology | ||||
| ||||
| Review scores | |
|---|---|
| Source | Rating |
| AllMusic |   [2] |
| Robert Christgau | B+ [3] |
| The Encyclopedia of Popular Music | [4] |
| Hi-Fi News & Record Review | A*:2 [5] |
| The Rolling Stone Album Guide |  [6] |
| St. Petersburg Times | [7] |
The Lion is an album by Youssou N'Dour, released in 1989. [8] [9] It was his first album to be distributed on a global scale. [8]
The album was produced by David Sancious, George Acogny, and Peter Gabriel. [10] The musicians were drawn from both Super Étoile de Dakar and Gabriel's band. [6]
The Los Angeles Times wrote that "the lack of definable hooks reduces the music to a luxuriant wash of sound that often buries N’Dour’s vocals." [10] Nick Robinson, reviewer of British music newspaper Music Week , praised the album. He noticed that the "joyful, flowing" voice of Senegalese performer matches good with "colourful rhythms." In the end Robinson said: "It's probably of the strongest world music / mainstream crossover albums and it should repeat the success of the 'Shakin' the Tree' single." [11] Trouser Press thought that "the title track sounds like mbalax meets the Go-Go’s, while 'Old Tucson' a song about the museums N’Dour has visited on his world travels, is merely puzzling." [12] The Washington Post opined that "some of [N'Dour's] new songs boast the bouncy, hooky tunefulness of [Paul] Simon's, and sit as comfortably atop the Central African rhythms as Simon's did atop the South African rhythms of Graceland." [13]
Youssou N'Dour is a Senegalese singer, songwriter, musician, composer, occasional actor, businessman, and politician. In 2004, Rolling Stone described him as, "perhaps the most famous singer alive" in Senegal and much of Africa and in 2023, the same publication ranked him at number 69 on its list of the 200 Greatest Singers of All Time. From April 2012 to September 2013, he was Senegal's Minister of Tourism.
Senegal's music is best known abroad due to the popularity of mbalax, a development of conservative music from different ethnic groups and sabar drumming popularized internationally by Youssou N'Dour.
Passion is an album released in 1989 by the English singer-songwriter Peter Gabriel. It was the first Peter Gabriel album to be released on Real World Records. It is his second soundtrack and eighth album overall. It was originally composed as the soundtrack album for the film The Last Temptation of Christ, but Gabriel spent several months after the film's release further developing the music, finally releasing it as a full-fledged album instead of a movie soundtrack. It is seen as a landmark in the popularisation of world music, and won a Grammy Award for Best New Age Album in 1990. It was remastered with most of Gabriel's catalogue in 2002.
Prison Bound is the second studio album by Social Distortion, released in 1988. It was the first album with bass guitarist John Maurer and drummer Christopher Reece. It expands the punk rock sound of the band's first album, Mommy's Little Monster (1983), by adding influences from country music and blues rock.
Mamadou "Jimi" Mbaye is a Senegalese guitarist best known for his work with Youssou N'dour. Mbaye has developed a unique Senegalese guitar style in which he makes his Fender Stratocaster sound like local instruments such as the kora or xalam.
Shaking the Tree: Sixteen Golden Greats is a compilation album by the English rock musician Peter Gabriel. It was released in 1990 as Gabriel's first career retrospective, including songs from his first solo album Peter Gabriel (1977), through Passion: Music for The Last Temptation of Christ (1989). It was remastered with most of Gabriel's catalogue in 2002. The vinyl version of the album is called Shaking the Tree: Twelve Golden Greats.
Ashley Maher is a Canadian singer and songwriter who has meshed the rhythmic impulses of West Africa and Latin America with Western song structures.
This is the solo discography of Peter Gabriel, an English singer-songwriter, musician and humanitarian activist who rose to fame as the lead vocalist and flautist of the progressive rock band Genesis. After leaving Genesis, Gabriel went on to a successful solo career. His 1986 album, So, is his most commercially successful, selling five million copies in America, and the album's biggest hit, "Sledgehammer", won a record nine MTV Awards at the 1987 MTV Video Music Awards. The song is the most played music video in the history of the station.
"In Your Eyes" is a song by the English rock musician Peter Gabriel from his fifth solo studio album So (1986). It features Youssou N'Dour singing a part at the end of the song translated into his native Wolof. Gabriel's lyrics were inspired by an African tradition of ambiguity in song between romantic love and love of God.
Habib Faye was a bassist, keyboardist, guitar soloist, arranger, composer and Grammy-nominated producer from Senegal. He was mostly known as the musical director for Youssou N'dour's Super Étoile de Dakar. He was one of the most talented African bassists of the last quarter-century.
Egypt is a Grammy Award-winning album by the Senegalese musician Youssou N'Dour, on which he is accompanied by the Egyptian Fathy Salama Orchestra. By incorporating Arabic influences and focusing on Muslim religious themes, the album was a departure from previous N'Dour releases. In the original Senegalese release, it was named Sant Allah.
"7 Seconds" is a song composed by Senegalese and Swedish singer-songwriters Youssou N'Dour and Neneh Cherry with Cameron McVey and Jonathan Sharp. It was released in May 1994 by Columbia as a single performed by N'Dour and Cherry, and achieved success, reaching the number-one position in numerous countries; in France, it stayed at number one for 16 weeks, a record at the time. N'Dour featured the song on his seventh album, The Guide (Wommat) (1994), while Cherry included it on her 1996 album Man. "7 Seconds" also won the MTV Europe Music Award in the category for Best Song of 1994. Its music video was directed by French director Stéphane Sednaoui. NME magazine ranked the song number 40 in their list of the 50 best songs of 1994.
Étoile de Dakar were a leading music group of Senegal in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Youssou N'Dour was one of the singers in the band and the band was a major part of N'Dour's rise to stardom in Senegal.
Youssou N'Dour: I Bring What I Love is a 2008 documentary film directed by filmmaker Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi that chronicles Senegalese icon Youssou N'Dour as he releases his Grammy Award-winning album Egypt and works to promote a more tolerant view of Islam. The film features musical superstar/activists Bono and Peter Gabriel. The documentary screened at festivals internationally including the Telluride Film Festival and Toronto International Film Festival in 2008, winning numerous audience awards as well the Special Jury Prize at the Middle East International Film Festival in 2008 and a nomination for the Pare Lorentz Award at the International Documentary Association Awards in 2009. The film premiered in New York City as the opening night of Brooklyn Academy of Music's Muslim Voices: Arts & Ideas Festival in 2009, and opened in theaters in the US and internationally to much acclaim. The film's soundtrack was released by Nonesuch Records in 2010.
The Guide (Wommat) is the seventh studio album by Senegalese singer and composer Youssou N'Dour. Recorded during the autumn of 1993 in both New York City and Dakar, the album was released on July 11, 1994, through Columbia Records. Featuring the hit single "7 Seconds", a duet with Neneh Cherry, The Guide (Wommat) is the commercially most successful album by Youssou N'Dour.
Set is an album by the Senegalese musician Youssou N'Dour, released in 1990. The album in part inspired the Senegalese youth movement Set-Setal, which sought to beautify Dakar.
Emotion is an album by the Congolese singer Papa Wemba, released in 1995. Wemba sang mostly in Lingala.
Specialist in All Styles is an album by the Senegalese band Orchestra Baobab, released in 2002. After the success of the Pirates Choice reissue, the band decided to record a reunion album. It was Orchestra Baobab's first album in 15 years. The album title was taken from a sign hanging outside a barbershop.
Eyes Open is an album by the Senegalese musician Youssou N'Dour, released in 1992 via Spike Lee's 40 Acres and a Mule Musicworks label. A video was shot for "Africa Remembers". N'Dour supported the album with a North American tour. Eyes Open was nominated for a Grammy Award, in the "Best World Music Album" category.
"Shakin' the Tree" is a 1989 song by Youssou N'Dour and Peter Gabriel from the Youssou N'Dour album The Lion. Released as a single, it reached number 61 on the UK official singles chart on 3 June 1989.