Etoile De Dakar
There isn't much in the way of Etoile De Dakar vinyl available. One of my formative vinyl experiences, and one I've recounted here before, is of having some of their material recorded from crackly disc onto tape at a store in the market in Dakar in 1993. You didn't buy the records from stores like this (well I did pick up a Fela disc but...) because otherwise yunnuh there wouldn't be any left to record for anyone else! That didn't stop collectors strip-mining the whole continent though did it?
"Absa Gueuye" I saw centuries ago in Paris but failed to pick up, but I stumbled upon it last weekend at the M&V: Hooray! "Xalis", dig the spectacles baby. "Ndiadiane Ndiaye" is yet more greatness. With the excellent Sterns series of CDs you have it all really (particularly Volumes 1 and 3). The one I've always yearned to find however is : "Tolou Badou Ndiaye", described by Stapleton and May in their landmark "African All Stars" as "Mbalax 1980-style: a minimal and spacy prelude to (Youssou N'Dour's) denser studio sounds of Immigres and Nelson Mandela"