Youssou N’Dour is officially running for President of Senegal. The announcement came with the New Year, although rumors of his candidacy had circulated widely for months. N’dour, a nationally beloved pop icon, enjoys fame in Senegal that may eclipse even that of the current president, Abdoulaye Wade, while internationally he remains the undisputed face of Senegal.

What is lesser known about N’dour to citizens of the music world is that he has parlayed his spectacularly successful singing career (he began at the age of 12) into a formidable local media empire. N’dour’s holdings include a newspaper (L’Observateur), radio station (RFM – Radio Future Media), and a television station (TFM), each of which is top-tier. He’s something akin to a less-sinister Senegalese Rupert Murdoch. N’dour also claims to have invested the majority of his wealth from these enterprises, as well as a grammy-award winning music career, in Senegal. It is this standing as successful entrepreneur and chief executive that the N’dour campaign will have to translate into administrative competence in the coming weeks.

N’dour’s declaration of candidacy gamely stated that the presidency is “une fonction et non un métier – an office and not a trade.” Likewise, in a rally before he officially declared candidacy, N’dour asked his base at a rally in his native Medina neighborhood of Dakar, “Is there any school where one can study to be a President?!” The insecurity is rooted in the fact that N’dour is widely regarded to have insufficient formal education.

At present, the field of opposition candidates is wide, and conspicuously lacking of a recognizable front-runner. N’dour, while a newbie to the political game, is certainly no stranger to the role of figure-head, currently serving as a goodwill ambassador for UNICEF and historically using his music to engage a wide range of social issues. In the early 1990s N’dour spearheaded a movement for urban renewal, public health, and beautification known as Set Setal. “Set,” meaning clean or proper in Wolof, was also the title of a hit single/album urging people to clean up their communities (song below).

N’dour’s spectacular rise is in many ways a story of the changing face of urban Africa. He began as the piercing young voice of Etoile de Dakar, a proponent of the then-new mbalax sound and hybrid identities of post-independence, went global in the 1990s catapulted by coinciding hunger for “world music” that was a cultural hallmark of late 20th century globalization, and ended up at the helm of a media company at the coming of the internet age in West Africa. Many claim he speaks better English than French.

A generational shift is sorely needed in Senegal, where the largest demographic is between ages 18-25. At the age of 85, Abdoulaye Wade (pictured below) has overstayed his welcome in the Palais Présidentiel, and his candidacy for a third term is objectively unconstitutional. This summer tensions flared as Wade tried to introduce a measure reducing the amount of votes needed to win a presidential election from more than 50% to 25%, so as to avoid a run-off. Wade was eventually forced to back down due to public outrage. It was around this time that N’dour began saying publicly that he would not remain neutral in the next election. However, N’dour who was initially an ally to Wade, had been engaged for more than two years in an extended legal battle with the Wade administration, which sought to block N’dour’s television station, TFM, from obtaining a broadcast license. Ultimately, the license was granted, but the station is restricted to “cultural content” and the proceedings engendered wide controversy about censorship.

As for pop stars as presidents in the African diaspora, one thinks of the most immediate example in Haiti, where Wyclef Jean’s heavily publicized candidacy was ultimately disqualified and another former musician, “Sweet Micky” aka Michel Martelly, took office. In December 2010, for the opening ceremony of the World Festival of Black Arts (FESMAN) in Dakar, Wyclef Jean appeared in Senegal as a guest of honor. Among the crowd at Léopold Sédar Senghor stadium, Wyclef made meandering remarks about his recently failed candidacy while seated in the same row as Abdoulaye Wade and several other African presidents. The crowd was largely indifferent. N’dour closed the show that night to rapturous applause.

In the long view, the concept of artist-statesman is not entirely unfounded in Senegal. Senegal’s first and arguably best president, Léopold Sédar Senghor, was a revolutionary poet and intellectual who led the country through independence in 1960. Senghor associated with the likes of Aimé Césaire with whom he originated the literary and cultural movement of Négritude. The difference is that Senghor was the embodiment of the independence era Afro-Parisian intellectual, equipped with the ceremonious mannerisms of the Francophonie that the era demanded, whereas N’dour is an entrepreneur of the new millennium, his vision intimated through networks and memes, media outlets and pop songs.

Story by OKA contributor M. Tinari