Sing For Me

From Ziguinchor, southern Senegal, the musical heartland of the country, Cherif Mbaw’s second international release brings little of his musical heritage to this album. Instead, it reaches out to electric pop with some forays into rock, Afro-rock and Americana. The singer-songwriter has an unusual tenor voice; it could be described as tremulous and sweet but it all too often feels chirrupy and saccharine. Still, a strong set of songs and some of the brilliant instrumentation that have made Senegal one of Africa’s great musical hotspots could have framed his voice and made something of it. Sadly, however, this is a weak piece of music with just one or two moments of relief. ‘Khadim’ is a nice spiritual ballad with some substantial female vocals, good guitar riffs and a lap-steel guitar thrown in to liven it up. Here, the Americana experiment works well and shows Mbaw’s voice from its best angle. At the other end of the scale, the limp, reggae-affiliated title-track, sung in English, shows just how bad the songwriting is. ‘Sama Xol’ (My Darling), has soft guitar strokes, weak vocals and a flaccid melody. ‘Africa’ is (presumably) chasing after a Nigerian Afro-beat style but with none of the bold instrumentation or charisma. This is music best left on the shelf.