Western Music

I’ve been surprised but the popularity of Western music here in Mauritania. There are something like 8 CD/DVD boutiques in Boghé and they all stock a majority of Western music, especially rap and hip-hop. When the sun sets, the main street in Boghé is like a bizarre version of Chicago’s South Side, with all the music stores blasting 50 Cent and Akon until 2am.^[1] The street fills up with Mauritanian teenagers pulling their pants up again and again beneath their huge shirts.
     My first week in Boghé, I broke the news of Tupac’s death to one teenager after another. I’m sure they’ve heard this before from past volunteers, but I guess they block it from their minds once we leave. They adore Tupac and must not want to believe it. They were also surprised that although R. Kelly comes from Chicago, we do not actually know each other.^[2] It stretched my language abilities to explain that I’d never seen the tacky terra cotta mansion pictured on his CD cover because there are no palm trees in Chicago.
     I was pretty disappointed by all this. I’m not wild about most pop music and I’m critical of the star worship that goes along with it, as well as the materialism and misogyny of most popular Western music. It’s disappointing to come 5,000 miles and hear the same music I didn’t care for the in the States.
     Still, the Mauritanian teenager’s interest in Western music is like the flip side of my desire to escape Western culture, which in part drove to join the Peace Corps. The fact they can’t understand most of lyrics also reflects on their open mindedness towards foreign things, a quality lacking in the States where most teenagers would never listen to music in anything other than English.
     It’s too bad that what Senegalese music I hear and see on the television seems to be copying Western obsessions with sex, cars, mansions, and other bling. But I guess this stuff is popular with guys everywhere, I know I wouldn’t mind some right now. Maybe it’s inevitable that eventually everyone is going to look, act, and consume just like me.

^[1]Akon is especially popular because he was born in Senegal. I’d never heard of him before coming here, but some volunteers that know about these things tell me he is popular State side as well.
^[2]There are only 3 million people in Mauritania and everyone seems to know everyone else. My host family lives in Boghé, on the Southern border with Senegal. When I was sick in Nouakchott, the capital in the middle of the country, I mentioned to my doctor where I lived. He immediately knew who my host father was and asked if his house was next to a small boutique, which it is. I knew then that my host family would know I was sick long before I got back to Boghé. The same thing has happened in taxis, restaurants, etc. I always throw around the name of my host family because half the time someone knows them and, by association, they know me.