The formation of Étoile de Dakar

1979: Number 37 in our series of the 50 key events in the history of world and folk music"If I say this, you will think I am crazy," said the guitarist Badou N'Diaye recently, "but Étoile was like the Beatles." This was the young group formed in 1979 out of the remnants of the Star Band, one of Dakar's best-known nightclub acts. Star of the show was "just a boy from the medina", a singer called Youssou N'Dour, who helped encourage a sound that leant more heavily on indigenous traditions. Coinci...

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