Immigrés / Bitim Rew

I actually liked this more than I thought I would, but it's just mostly not for me. Favorite track: Pitche Mi

I’ve always really enjoyed Youssou N’Dour’s “7 Seconds” with Neneh Cherry. It’s a brilliant song, so I was looking forward to giving Immigrés a listen today and discovering more of his music.

I really enjoyed this. It’s not the sort of music I would normally choose to listen to, and I do sometimes struggle with albums where I can’t understand the lyrics. However, that didn’t stop me appreciating just how good the music is on this record.

The production is excellent. The drums and percussion sound fantastic, the guitar playing is lovely, and Youssou N’Dour has a beautiful voice. There’s so much rhythm and energy throughout, and even without understanding the words, you can hear the emotion and passion in his singing.

What also works in the album’s favour is its length. With just four tracks, it never outstays its welcome. There is some repetition in the rhythms and melodies, but the album is short enough that it never becomes boring or starts to feel too familiar.

This is exactly the sort of discovery I enjoy about this challenge. An album I probably would never have listened to otherwise, but one that I genuinely enjoyed. It’s beautifully performed, full of interesting sounds and well worth a listen.

Favourite track: “Pitche Mi”. A really enjoyable track with some lovely guitar playing and great music throughout.

Least favourite track: Nothing really. Everything was worth a listen.

Album artwork: Not exactly the sort of album cover I’d want hanging on the walls at home!

Nice and broadly instrumental. I wish there was more variance internally to each track? There was enough between each song. Half the track length and twice the tracks would have made it a better listen for me.

An album that subverts expectations, since it goes much beyond the percussion that was advertised. Will definitely need to take a further look into N'Dour's discography. This is precisely the sort of album that I signed into the list for.

8/10 [KEEP]

It turns out that Senegalese music is just ridiculously good. I didn't get into this quite as much as Djam Leelii, but this album does have a lot of the same appeal. The songs sound relatively simple, but they are hiding incredibly intricate guitar and percussion, and the cumulative effect of everything is just dizzying and spellbinding. The fuller arrangements here keep this from being as stark as Djam Leelii, but it does still carry a lot of the same magic. Pitche Mi and Taaw are my favorites here. Pitche Mi is beautiful in almost a mournful way. While Taaw is easily the most intricate sounding song on here. Just watching it evolve through it's runtime is utterly delightful. I thoroughly enjoyed the other two songs as well, but I didn't have as strong a reaction. Even if this isn't *quite* a 5, I'm gonna be thinking about this album, and listening to it a hell of a lot more than I thought.

absolutely loved it.

Didn't understand a thing, but it was enjoyable!

Id prefer it if each track was shorter and there was no singing.
A few nice melodies here and there, but ultimately it's a wailing din.

Хороший африканський альбом. Жанр, як я дізнався, називається мбалакс. Я таку музику люблю і завжди слухаю з задоволенням (особливо наживо, якщо така можливість випадає). Поставив 3.5, але тут можна і 4.

Interesante. Me gustaría entender qué dice pero no me gustó tanto como para ponerle esa atención.

This had an almost Cuban feeling at times.

4.5
This was great, loving the African music on this list and this was just such a blast to listen to.

I’ve enjoyed the vast majority of the world music on this list so far. This is no exception

Nice to have something a bit different even if occasionally, to my uncultured western ears, this sounds like the band are playing two different songs at the same time.

3/5. One of those albums that is a groove machine, especially on my personal highlight “Taaw.” The drums and bright horns give it a very joyful feel and the vocals are pleasant as well. That being said even in its short runtime it does start to get a bit samey so the four tracks here all slightly blend together in my mind. Not a new all-time favorite of mine but still a pleasant listen for a quiet morning.

I’m at a 4.5 that I’ll bump down to a 4.

Great grooves across the board here, & some rather high highs among the 4 tracks present. Without any translated lyrics in front of me, I was forced to go off of a vibe for most of these, and thankfully, these all have great vibes for being recorded in 1984. Seriously, some of the layering in the production feels ahead of schedule by a few years. Since most of these tracks are a bit longer, there is a staleness that inevitably comes with them, especially since the percussion doesn’t move much. It’s not really an issue until “Badou”, which is just sort of a flat closing track to my ears, at least compared to the first 3. Other than that, the rest of this is really nice, and I found myself especially grooving to the music around the midway points of both “Pitche Mi” & “Taaw”.

There’s not too much else to say; I’m bumping it down to 4 just because of the slight staleness & “Badou” falling just a bit flat, but if anything hits just a bit more on a future relisten, this could easily go up to a 5. I think it’s a great representation of Senegalese music, a great pick for the list, and a really breezy 34 minutes that can’t hurt to listen to. I enjoyed it.

Immigres is just another world album in the sea of world albums. Apparently, N'Dour's Wikipedia page says that he helped create a genre known as mblax. Well, this new genre certainly sounds a lot like all the other genres I've heard from Africa. I am a bit sad that i have to be so harsh on it because the musicianship itself is alright and that is the big reason why i can't justify a 1 star review here. But this album was still just really boring. It was just that kind of music that goes in one ear and out the other and the one that i just forgot about once i finished. The album itself doesn't sound bad and i get why people would enjoy it but its just not something that was able to keep my interest.
Best Song: Immigres / Bitim Rew
Worst Song: Taaw

Cool music. Cool hat 👍

Interesting listen. I don't think I'll listen to it again, but this was fine.

It was alright. Kinda of forgettable