Music

So, Back in the states all my friends were telling me about how cool and great senegalese music is.  For those of you that told me senegalese music is good, you are so wrong you have no idea.  senegalese music is quite terrible.  They are still listening too Celine Dions "My Heart Will Go On" which is the theme song to Titanic.  that is not a good song.  Another popular artist here is some chick named Viviane. she's like the current Miley cyrus or Taylor swift of Senegal.  She really sucks.  there is waaaay too much percussion.  the chord progressions are amateur.  Most other Senegalese music kinda sounds alike too.  a lot of drumming and yelling.  There is rap here.  the rappers are outrageously ridiculous and they all want to be Akon.  so you have people here that are quite poor, but they decide that they want to have fly kicks and aviators so that they can be like Akon.  If you are white and are watching a rap concert (and there are many small rap concerts) the rapper automatically thinks that you know about rap, and that you can rap, and that you enjoy rap.  They will bring you in front of the crowd.  This happened to me.  I was at a rap concert in a village of 800 people one night.  the rapper saw me in the crowd and tried to get me to go out in front of everyone.  I was still in my boubou, and decided not too.  He did look absolutely ridiculous... after a while I was bored so I ran home, put on clothes and sunglasses (it was after 10 at night) and went back.  I jumped in front of the crowd and started dancing as much like a jewish boy can to rap music.  I felt like one of the beastie boys.  they gave me a microphone and a back stage pass (remember, i am in a village with 800 people, only about 50-70 of which are actually there watching this happen) I just rolled with it.  I danced and pretended to know the words and made the crowd wave their arms and clap their hands and really just live in the moment.  There was a video camera there to capture the whole moment.  I do not know where the video is, but I would like to watch.

Since my village experience I now want to go out and buy some fancy pants, some fly kicks, a new hat featuring an American sports team, a bigger bet buckle, and some aviators just in case this kind of situation arises again (and I believe it will).  the next day as I was sitting under the tree reading a book, a few gentlemen and their nieces came up to me asking about marriage.

Mike