lens culture
Report from Dakar
Sharon Schoen

Report from Dakar

A lighter side of Africa, with global fashions and hip-hop culture.

Photos
10
Status
Public
Created
Mar 31, 2018
Updated
Feb 08, 2022
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Photos (10)

“Life here, it’s a bit difficult. But it’s not too serious.” These sayings, heard on occasion in Dakar, belie the Senegalese art of dignified understatement.
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There is a mélange of cultural influences in Dakar which may at first glance seem a jumble of mixed metaphors to the uninitiated. However, Dakarois—like most global urbanites—generally take a nonchalant attitude toward paradoxes and apparent incongruities.
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Cover
Although he lives in an outlying suburb, and enjoys a much more traditional life than his counterparts who live or work in central Dakar, this butcher's old school style looks like it might have been lifted directly from an early 1980s music video.
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Mame Ngor M’Boup of Baye Fall Sisteme music management poses for a snapshot, while he explains that Senegalese hip hop is number three in the world after the U.S. and France. He projects that Senegal could soon move up the ranks.
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Nana is the hot haircutter in Dakar, and the style-conscious line up for hours for one of his cuts.
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Lemou Diop is a gifted singer and Simba performer. The Simba is a recent theatrical revival of ritual dances that were performed by secret leopard societies generations ago. Young people train for years to be a Simba, mastering the art of convincing growling, fire breathing, and razor blade eating.
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The owner of Slam Dunk supplies Dakarois with the latest looks from abroad.
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Friends read cowrie shells—a form of fortune-telling, and share recent snapshots.
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Dakar youth have created their own slang which interweaves words from many languages, including Wolof, French, English, Italian, Arabic, and Spanish. It’s said that this idea was inspired by former President Senghor’s cosmopolitan student days in Paris. As a result, you may hear sentences such as, “Graule, parce-ce que, no problem. Ok, ciao!” © Sharon Schoen
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