Aw Sa Yone Vol 2

In the early 1980s in the city of Thies in Senegal, a group recorded approximately two-and-a-half hours of music that was never to receive a release – not even on cassette, the preferred local medium at the time. Dieuf-Dieul are one of the great West African bands that never really happened. In 2002 a couple of tracks appeared on CD and now, with a second volume of Aw Sa Yone, their entire output is available for all to enjoy. Their music is a diverse mixture of mbalax and more traditional Senegalese music, with influences from Casamance and the Gambia, and even a little bit of salsa too. The seven lengthy tracks include five songs that feature the soaring voice of Bassirou Sarr, the youngest of their three vocalists. His thick and syrupy voice is similar to that of Youssou N’dour when he was the young rising star of Senegalese music in the Star Band and Etoile de Dakar. The epic track ‘Jirim’ is as impressive as Youssou's ‘Jalo’. However Dieuf-Dieul perform less of the hard mbalax that Etoile de Dakar were famous for. Their repertoire is more varied: loaded with psychedelic guitars and wah-wah effects, funk bass, and a breezy horn section of trumpet, trombone and saxophone. Some of it is raunchy and upbeat, and some of it slinky and seductive. It's a glorious sound: the group deserves to be added to the list of West African legends.