Journal of African Cinemas Volume 1 Number 2 © 2009 Intellect Ltd

Article. English language. doi: 10.1386/jac.1.2.207/1

Music and narrative in five films by

Ousmane Sembène
Samba Diop The Institute of Cultural Studies and Oriental
Languages, University of Oslo, Norway

Abstract Keywords
Diop’s article focuses on music in Ousmane Sembène’s films as an integral part of Sembène
film narrative. The author first describes the traditional instruments of Senegal music
and their usage, and proceeds to analysing the mood they create in Sembène’s first sound
three socio-realist films (Borom sarret, La noire de…/Black Girl, Mandabi). environment
As a narrative counterpoint to traditional instruments, piano dance music mostly narrative
indicts the colonial ideology and its aftermath after independence. This study also
illustrates Sembène’s well-known concern for egalitarianism among the vari-
ous ethnic groups of Senegal. Diop extends his study to Sembène’s changing and
experimental concept of sound as a narrative device. He analyses the meaning of
vocals (with their translation), the sounds of the environment as well as silence in
Emitaï; and in Sembène’s more recent films, he interprets the use of popular stars
heard over the radio as a sign of the democratization of the enjoyment of music.

Introduction
As Francis Bebey (1975: 119) has correctly observed, ‘African music is
based on speech. The bond between language and music is very intimate.’
Speech itself is intimately linked to oratorical art and, in the process of
making his films, Sembène is aware that the Senegalese people whose
experience he wants to render are mostly illiterate in European languages.
Therefore, the indigenous customs and world-view are couched inherently
in African orality. Sada Niang (1996: 59) noted that Ousmane Sembène is
generally aware of ‘the repressive and restrictive nature of writing and
written texts’ and Imruh Bakari (2000: 9) observed that Sembène is con-
cerned with ‘the articulation of African subjectivity inside/outside of
modernity’. Thus, in most of his films, Sembène takes great care to render
the prevailing oral culture in Senegalese society.
The presence of music in Sembène’s films is varied and has many pur-
poses. Sembène judiciously uses the different tones of music and words as
forms of writing but also as ways of expressing an opinion or just getting
his point across. Thus, I will analyse the multifaceted dimension of music
in a selection of Sembène’s films while taking into account the time span
of about forty years that the films cover, starting with Borom sarret/
Bonhomme charrette/The Cart Driver (1963) and ending with Faat Kine
(2001). The aforementioned time span is just a yardstick that measures
the film-maker’s growth, coming of age as well as his itinerary. It will be

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 apparent that over the years, the film-maker’s theme-related concerns
have changed but not his sharp eye and critical observation of Senegalese
society. What has remained constant, however, is Sembène’s artful play
and mixing of seemingly disparate and disjointed themes. He appeals to
music in order to fill the void created by the unsatisfactory and incomplete
nature of graphic writing. The film-maker strives to find alternatives to
traditional writing and what better choice of communication and expres-
sion than music.
Before discussing the many facets of music and words in Sembène’s
films, it is important to specify that within the scope of this article, music
should be understood as an encompassing concept that goes beyond the
mere playing of musical instruments; voice and the elements of nature also
constitute musical forms. Soundtrack plays a central role in Sembène’s
films and renders his concerns imperious and compelling. One senses
urgency on the part of the film-maker as he attempts to chronicle the
present, the conditions of living in present-day postcolonial Africa. It is also
fair to say that Sembène is not overly concerned with a mythical and vain-
glorious African past even though he treats the historical past in some of
his films such as Ceddo (1976) and Camp de Thiaroye (1988). However, even
in the aforementioned films, the African past as a theme is not front and
centre; rather, Sembène wants to bring forth the idea of a usable past, in
other words, to use the past in order to shed light on the present. Gugler
(2003: 8) rightly remarks that the quest for authenticity and the usage of
amateur actors make an African language such as Wolof the language of
choice in Sembène’s films. Indeed, finding refuge in a useless past for the
sake of it does not appeal to Sembène. ‘Music of the present time’, an expres-
sion borrowed from Michel Chion (1995: 291), succinctly renders
Sembène’s concerns and, to that end, the music in his films takes the form
of a polyrhythm, a polyphony, that is an integrated whole of the various
types of rhythms and of musical forms, traditional as well as modern ones.
Thus, the Senegalese film-maker sets a goal of translating and of render-
ing the various ethnic identities that compose the tapestry of his country.
He tries to do so without falling into the ethnocentric ethos or into an excess
of ethnic praise. It is a balancing exercise as the film-maker tries to show the
rich and diverse indigenous cultures and languages without putting any
one of them above the others: Sembène strives for egalitarianism among the
various ethnic groups of Senegal. As a pan-Africanist, the film-maker is
careful not to over-emphasize ethnic identity, which can be divisive and
tribal (to the detriment of a more holistic national and pan-African identity
that will supersede an atomized and fragmented tribal identity). In the final
analysis, music and soundtrack as obtained from the Senegalese ethnic
groups must be appreciated under the angle of variety and the need to dem-
onstrate that Africans have rich cultures. This consideration must not pre-
clude (as pointed out earlier) a more encompassing national and wholesome
African identity within which all ethnic groups can fit; in other words,
Sembène tries to make the whole the sum of its parts.
A short explanation of the musical instruments used in the films being
discussed in this essay will illustrate the cultural context from which
Sembène draws his musical inspiration. In general, the instruments follow
the ethnic lines; for instance the Wolof drum also known as sabar is

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 prominent in Mandabi/Le Mandat/The Money Order (1968), the sound com-
ing from the sabar is sharp and light and generally denotes a festive atmos-
phere or a party. As the opposite of the sabar, we have the Diola drum,
which is the symbol of a forest culture, that of the Diola people. In Emitaï
(1972), a film that takes place in Casamance, the drum is not at all joyful
but rather heavy and always signals the presence of danger. In scenes in
which the sound travels over and across the trees, the drum warns the
various groups disseminated across the forest of the invasion of the vil-
lages by the soldiers of the French colonial army. In addition, the military
drum (tambour), an obvious import from France whose beat accompanies
the soldiers’ steps, denotes order, discipline, determination, esprit de corps
but, above all else, the will to kill as soldiers are trained for that purpose.
Concerning the string instruments, two types are mostly used in
Sembène’s films: first, we have the Wolof xalam, a three-stringed instru-
ment (there is also a four-stringed version) that is present in Borom sarret
and is often accompanied with songs. Then we have the kora, the
21-stringed instrument with a hollow calabash at the bottom of the instru-
ment. Unlike the Wolof sabar and the Diola drum, the kora is not linked to
any particular ethnic group in Sembène’s films even though the instru-
ment originates from Mande culture. The kora is used in many scenes that
describe general African culture and customs, those found in almost all
ethnic groups; thus, the kora can be considered as a unifying musical
instrument as it provides a bridge that links the various ethnic groups of
Senegal. Altogether, Sembène faces a triple challenge. Indeed, how can
the artist appeal to African traditional narrative and aesthetic forms while
blending the latter with the image and then infuse it with both music and
soundtrack in order to strike a balance? Or, as articulated by Thackway
(2003: 11), how to ‘develop the narrative and aesthetic pleasure of film
[and] explore traditional narrative forms [and] focus more on the quality
of the images themselves’? Obviously, Sembène is proud of the multicul-
tural and multilingual fabric of Senegalese society and likes to promote
African art and its specificity. I will attempt to show how the Senegalese
film-maker faces this challenge.
Sembène assigns aesthetic qualities to each musical instrument. In
effect, if each instrument is linked to a specific ethnic group – as that will
be apparent later in my analyses – it remains that Sembène puts more
emphasis on cultural differences per se, rather than on ethnocentric val-
ues as it were. Actually, throughout his life and work (creative writing
and films), the film-maker has strived to downplay ethnocentrism and has,
instead, celebrated values such as pan-African solidarity. Again, this does
not mean that ethnicity is not important in Sembène’s work. Ethnicity in
Africa is a reality that cannot be denied. Thus, Sembène thought it more
judicious to focus on culture. To that end, the aesthetic qualities and
attributes of the instruments are tied to the various cultures as represented
in the films that I will discuss below. As examples, the drum (sabar) is tied
to Wolof culture; that musical instrument emits sharp notes and the
accompanying dance compels the dancer to be nimble and to jump in the
air as often as dictated by the rhythm. Thus, a vertical type of dance. In
contrast, the Diola drum emits heavy sounds; in this stance, and contrary
to the Wolof dancer, the Diola dancer drags his feet and keeps them on the

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 floor, thus the dance is grounded on the floor if I may put it that way. We
are here in the presence of a horizontal type of dance. Finally, the last
musical element, the kora, has strings just like the guitar and does not
involve any dance (contrary to the drums); rather, the kora puts the lis-
tener in a pensive, joyous, elated or sad mood.

Borom sarret
In Borom sarret, at the very beginning of the film one hears the call to
Islamic prayer by the muezzin for the dawn prayer, the first Muslim prayer
of the day. The call signals the start of the day’s activities, in the same way
as a cock crowing or an alarm clock. The choice of starting the film with
the call to prayer is not accidental, for the cart driver (who is the main
character of the film) is Muslim and prays before setting off for work.
Furthermore, the call of the muezzin is a singing voice that fulfils an
important function: to draw the attention of the believers to their daily
religious duties. As in most of his films, Sembène creates a dichotomy
along the lines of tradition and modernity; the traditional themes are
accompanied by the playing of the xalam whereas when the film-maker
comes across modernity, he uses European classical music. In effect,
starting with Borom sarret (as well as in most of his films), the European
colonial experience in Africa is overwhelming.
The narrative plot of Borom sarret closely follows the dichotomy noted
earlier. Like many African cities, Dakar (where this was shot) is a colonial
city that traditionally features the European quarter on the one hand and
the indigenous native neighbourhood on the other, in the layout that is
present in many novels by African writers such as Mongo Beti, Ahmadou
Kourouma and Bernard Dadie. The European city is clean, the streets are
paved and lined with trees; the buildings and dwellings are freshly painted
in white, the lawns are well kept and the flower beds manicured; in short,
the European city is synonymous with cleanliness, order, education and a
new and modern way of seeing the world. In contrast, in addition to the
trash that is never collected, the native quarter is dirty, the streets are
unpaved and full of sand and the houses are usually wooden and tin
shacks. The native quarter is the very expression of poverty and is the
shanty town inhabited by the disenfranchised, the poor, the marginalized
and all the villagers who migrated in droves to the city in search of greener
pastures. This geographical dichotomy is still in existence in postcolonial
Africa. Thus, in his acerbic satire of the African postcolonial elites, Sembène
rightly shows that the new black African elites who replaced the white
colonizers now inhabit the beautiful dwellings and apartments left behind
by the departed European colonizers. These new elites are not concerned
with developing their country. Their goal is to have fun and being inde-
pendent for them means to party, not to work.
Thus, music in Borom sarret highlights class division and temporal
realities. The xalam is the symbol of the African past, of the kingdoms of
yesteryear. In one episode, a griot publicly sings the ancestors of the cart
driver who shares the same first name as Sembène: Ousmane. This might
be for Sembène, whose leftist and Marxist beliefs are well known, a way of
identifying with the working class. While enumerating an obviously fake
genealogy, the sound of the xalam accompanies the voice of the bard.

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 Ousmane, the cart driver is happy and thinks that he too is entitled to
praises, in spite of his inferior social and economic position. Despite his
misery, he is still a noble albeit a poor one. In this episode, Sembène uses
lyrics and music as a means of economic exchange, for upon singing the
cart driver’s praise, the griot receives in return some money as a reward.
Music also soothes the pain of the poor city dweller as this is the only
instance when Ousmane smiles. Normally, he toils in order to eke out a
living in the city. This praise scene deserves commentary.
We are in the presence of a public performance which takes place in
the street as, while the griot is singing, there is a crowd watching and lis-
tening. Beforehand, however, Ousmane asked questions, in an internal
monologue: ‘Who is singing about my ancestors, the brave warriors of the
past? Their blood flows in my veins. Even if this new life enslaves me, I am
still noble like my ancestors.’ Straight after this monologue, the griot enters
into action and starts singing the cart driver’s praise. The translation of
the lyrical composition of the griot from Wolof into English is mine:

I greet you Ousmane Dieng

The traditions
I am going to entertain you today about the traditions
Ousmane Dieng
I am going to praise you
Nguirane is his father
Coumbe the noble one Macoro Faye
Majojo Penda and
Mame Samba Jimak Ndiaye
Who stays in Ciloor
Mojojo Ndiaye Sigèer Kane
Birame Ndjèmé Coumba
They are the disciples of Serigne Guèye in Touba
Birame Ndjèmé Coumba.

The song sounds like a fake genealogy. The singer has fabricated a geneal-
ogy for Ousmane Dieng, and in return, he receives his due. There is an
expectation on the part of the performer. Most of the singer’s performance
is made of a concatenation of names which are supposed to be the cart
driver’s ancestors, brave ones just as Ousmane would have wished for in
his monologue. Furthermore, at the beginning of his praise, the griot
inflates the man’s ego and succeeds. Ousmane is very happy and pays the
griot twice. The griot has hit his mark, which consists of flattering the per-
son in order to receive a reward. Clearly, the relationship between the griot
and the cart driver is based on an economic exchange. The situation of the
griot here is emblematic of the role and function of any griot in modern
Senegalese society. Sembène wants to show that the griot has become
irrelevant and obsolete. In the heydays of African kingdoms and empires,
the griot played a vital and needed role. Now, he has become a parasite,
surviving in the city for his only skills are his voice and his adroitness at
flattering people. One must also appreciate the griot’s improvisational skills
that, in turn, are the hallmark of oral cultures. The very fact that, although
he has never met Ousmane before, he is able to create a genealogy for him

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 on the spot is proof that he is good at his craft. As the saying goes, ‘neces-
sity is the mother of invention’.
In Borom sarret, Sembène creates a movement built around the mobil-
ity of the cart driver who goes around with his cart and horse in order to
seek out people and goods to transport. Thus, early in the day, he trans-
ports people on their way to work; after that, he carries cement blocks;
then a pregnant woman who is about to give birth; after that, a father
asks him to help him take the body of his deceased infant child to the cem-
etery for burial. However, the episode that really highlights the epic move-
ment of the film is when a westernized African man, dressed in European
clothes, wants to go into the European quarter in order to carry some
goods. At first, Ousmane refuses, and rightly so, as the city centre is forbid-
den to horses and carts. After much insistence on the part of the western-
ized customer, he finally gives in. His fears are realized as a police officer
stops him and confiscates the cart; to add insult to injury, the vile cus-
tomer does not pay the poor cart driver. Ousmane returns to the native
quarter with his horse in tow. The discreet sound of an orchestral version
of Mozart’s Ave Verum rises as the camera shows the skyline with the
tops of the buildings occupying the whole space. However, throughout
his return walk, Ousmane’s monologue against ‘modern life’ covers
Mozart’s music. As he reaches his neighbourhood (quartier populaire), he
seems elated, free and happy to be back on familiar ground. At that
moment, the music of the xalam is heard again.
Borom sarret is a tale of marginalization in which Sembène uses music
as a trope that delineates class division. Within the frame of the city, class
separations are very sharp as the rich and educated live in a sanitized and
closely guarded world whereas the poor inhabit the slums at the periphery
and margin of the city. To each its music: to the native quarter the sound
of the xalam whereas the European quarter is represented by classical
music. Again, towards the end of the film, a shot shows the receding sky-
line of the city centre while the moving camera simultaneously brings to
the fore the shacks of the native quarter, an almost prospective glimpse of
what lies ahead, poverty and wretchedness. All the same, Sembène vividly
captures the class reality of the new postcolonial Africa, a new dawn that
is not at all promising.

La Noire de... /Black Girl

The next film, La noire de…/Black Girl (1966) is articulated around the
tragic end of a maid called Diouana who dies in France where she was
brought by her white French employers. They normally reside and work
in Senegal; however, while vacationing in southern France, they bring
Diouana along with them and the maid will encounter her demise. The
plot of the film as well as the main narrative line can be read through the
mask. Paulin Vieyra (1972: 75) notes that the mask is at first a sign of
friendship between Diouana and her female employer, then becomes an
element of discord once they are all in France and at the end it is the sym-
bol for Africa. An omnipresent object and work of art, the mask also
reveals the various musical modalities. The mask is primarily an art object
that Diouana gave to the couple as a present. They put it on the wall of
the apartment as decoration. When they left for France, the couple took

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 the mask along with them, but as the relationship between the woman
and her employers soured, the mask became a bad omen. In the scene
when Diouana asks the couple to give her the mask back, the French wife
refuses; however, the husband tells her to give it back to Diouana as it
belongs to her. The wife is obsessed with the mask. Is it because of remorse
for having badly treated the maid? After Diouana’s suicide, the last modal-
ity as played by the mask is at the end of the film when the Frenchman
returns the mask to Diouana’s family, along with her belongings. The
family lives in a slum at the periphery of the city of Dakar. In this scene, a
child puts the mask on his face and tries to scare the Frenchman. The
Frenchman leaves Diouana’s family compound in brisk steps as if he
were scared, revealing his foreignness and guilt, perhaps. In other words,
the Frenchman is out of place. His real abode is the European quarter and
he must return to where he belongs, as he is obviously unwanted in the
native neighbourhood.
I want to show that contrasting musical instruments intimately
relate to the changing functions of the mask in the narrative. Black Girl
is replete with different musical instruments, each delineating a precise
narrative function in addition to featuring a cultural reality. At the
beginning of the film, a liner (Ancerville, the name of the boat, has actu-
ally existed from the 1950s to the late 1970s plying the maritime route
between Marseilles and Dakar via Casablanca) is shown entering the
port of Marseilles, with Diouana on board. As soon as she gets off the
boat, she is met by her boss (called ‘Misse’, an obvious mispronuncia-
tion of ‘Monsieur’). Then, after having put Diouana’s suitcase in the
trunk of the car, they set off. They drive on the famous Côte d’Azur
accompanied by boisterous chords played on the sort of out-of-tune
pianos used in popular dance halls (pianos bastringues). The music may
come from a pianola or mechanical piano. The use by Sembène of this
dance music in this specific shot implies the idea or dream of summer
vacation, with the palm trees lining the Côte d’Azur, the beach, the sea,
the sun and farniente.
Once Diouana is settled and starts working in the apartment where she
cleans, cooks and washes, she starts to reminisce about Africa. The very
definition of work in the film is of paramount importance for, in the eyes of
her French employers, Diouana is good only for this type of work, follow-
ing the western conception of the division of labour that states that women
do domestic chores whereas men are in charge of public office (Lebeuf
1960: 93).
As a maid (bonne à tout faire), Diouana longs for her homeland, as life is
very tough for her in France; she has no friends, never goes out, and
always works, a reality far removed from the excitement she had in Dakar
when she was invited to go to France. At this juncture, the music shifts
from the rough piano chords to the kora, the African instrument with 21
strings. Just as the xalam represents traditional Africa in Borom sarret, so
too does the kora in Black Girl. When shacks are shown, one hears the kora
music. The sharp notes of the kora accompany Diouana’s sadness in France
as well as her slow descent into hell and, finally, death. Whenever Diouana
reminisces about home, the kora music accompanies her monologues in
voice-over. Conversely, whatever is intrinsically French is rendered by the

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 dance tune on the piano bastringue, for example, when the employers have
invited their friends to have a meal in order to enjoy an African dish pre-
pared by Diouana.
In an interesting scene, however, the kora plays well into the French
quarter. The scene takes place in Dakar, prior to the family and Diouana’s
travel to France. When the kora music leaves the scene of the African
slum, the camera slowly turns towards the French quarter. Normally, this
neighbourhood is off limit to anything that slightly resembles an African
custom; the only African who is allowed into the quarter is the worker
who cleans, cooks, washes and looks after the children of the French peo-
ple. We are perhaps in the presence of a kind of synthesis of African and
European values or, very simply put, the French couple who employ
Diouana are being opportunistic, pretending to have accepted Africa but
deep down they have no respect for African culture. This posturing is dif-
ficult to admit, for, according to Sembène, with their air of superiority, it is
hard to imagine Frenchmen, the former colonial masters who are imbued
with their sense of cultural and linguistic superiority, acknowledging
African customs and languages. In this episode, the music of the kora blurs
the class lines and undermines the colonial division.
The next interesting scene concerning music in Black Girl happens in
Dakar just before Diouana leaves for France. She has a boyfriend who is try-
ing to discourage her from going to France. While the two are seated on a
bench in a park in downtown Dakar, the kora music can be heard in the
background; however, in this scene the notes are not sharp but rather mel-
low, thus denoting some kind of happiness, no matter if that happiness is
elusive and short-lived. At some point, Diouana leaves the bench, runs
toward the monument dedicated to the war dead, that is, the African soldiers
who fought in the French army in Europe during the First and Second World
Wars. A shot shows the government officials laying a wreath on the monu-
ment while the ominous sound of a French military drum can be heard in
the background; the drum here is the symbol of violence, danger and death.
In effect, we are in the presence of a war drum. This drum scene at the war
monument is an ideological one since Sembène is using sound and image to
highlight the debt the French owe to the Africans who have shed their blood
in order to defend la mère patrie yet have not received any recognition, a
theme Sembène will return to in Camp de Thiaroye (Diop 2004: 21–26).
At the end of the film, when Diouana commits suicide in France in the
bathtub, the scene is highlighted by the music of the kora. A brief obituary
is inserted in the local newspaper to the effect that a Negro woman has
committed suicide. The following shot, which shows the beach and the
sea, resounds with the same foxtrot tune on the piano bastringue, creating
an atmosphere that is both joyful and indifferent. The reading one can
have of this editing is that even though an African woman has just com-
mitted suicide, life goes on; people still go to the beach. Finally, at the end
of the film, the employers return to Dakar and the French man brings
Diouana’s belongings to her family and to her mother in particular. He
enters the slum, walking through the winding sandy streets looking for
Diouana’s house while a rhythmic choral chant in the Sereer language
accompanies him, for Diouana belonged to the Sereer ethnic group. The
mixed voices counteract the mechanical piano.

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 Figure 1: DVD cover Le Mandat (Wolof French Subtitles), Médiathèque des Trois Mondes (M3M).

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 Three types of music are represented in Black Girl: The piano bastringue
for French culture and, for African culture, the kora, which is often rein-
forced by voice, as well as the rhythmic choral chant in Sereer highlight-
ing Diouana’s difficult life and tragic end. In Black Girl, as noted by Paulin
Vieyra (1972: 79), Sembène puts more emphasis on image than on sound
yet music serves as an important social and economic marker that
enhances the visual.

Mandabi/The Money Order

Mandabi (1968) features a gamut of musical and vocal expressions: the
kora, babies crying, the call of the muezzin, the sound of the xalam, the
beating of the drum and the chants of women (in particular Ibrahima
Dieng’s two wives). Each musical instrument highlights a specific theme
and concern.
The film starts with the sound of the kora, as Ibrahima Dieng, the
main character, is shown at the barber shop, being shaved; the shop is
under a tree and is actually not a real shop with walls, windows and
doors. Rather, like in many African scenes, the barber works in an open
space in the city. This opening scene denotes the routine of daily life. It is
neither a good nor a bad scene, just normal life. After that, the postman
enters Dieng’s compound in order to deliver the money order that was
sent from Paris by Dieng’s nephew. The nephew is an immigrant who
cleans the streets of Paris and sends remittances back home, as do many
African immigrés in France. The scene of the delivery of the money order
is an ordinary one as we hear the cries of a baby and see a flock of chil-
dren sitting on a mat while eating, and the women carrying out their
daily chores. The presence of so many children is the very symbol of the
extended African family, even in the city.
When Dieng returns home at lunchtime, his wives have prepared
for him a tasty rice dish. After having eaten, Dieng falls asleep only to
wake up after the midday prayer has passed; here Sembène chronicles
the presence of Islam in Senegal. This country is predominantly Muslim
and, as a good Muslim, Dieng must pray when the prayer is set, not
after. Dieng, however, has eaten so much that he has fallen into a deep
siesta. While he is asleep, the camera shows the roofs of the houses and
buildings of the city and one can distinctly hear the call of the muezzin.
This scene implies that Dieng is not a very good Muslim and when he
wakes up, he blames his wives for not waking him up at the prayer
time.
After the delivery of the money order, the news spreads all over town
that Dieng is rich now and all his friends and neighbours come to see him
asking for help, every one wanting a share of the money. Here the xalam
plays in the morning, at sunrise, at daybreak, thus heralding a new day, a
day full of hope. This is the opposite of the xalam in Black Girl since in the
latter film this instrument highlights hope and despair. Dieng is so sure
that he will soon get paid at the post office that he goes to the shop near
his house not only to take groceries on credit but also to borrow money for
his bus fare to the city. His hope is dashed, as he needs an ID card before
the money order is paid. This is the start of the roller coaster of Dieng’s
many misfortunes as he goes from one disappointment to another.

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 Figure 2: Arame sings “sunu manda bi”. Still prepared by Samba Diop. Permission by Alain Sembene.

Beforehand, however, while Dieng was in the city, one of his relatives (a
westernized young man) came to visit him and found Dieng’s wives at the
entrance of the house. When the relative enquires as to Dieng’s wherea-
bouts, the wife responds that he went to the city; then the relative asks
whether there was a wedding and why there is drumming in the neigh-
bourhood. The wife simply declares that it is a party and that whenever
people hear that someone has money, they have to celebrate. Here, she is
alluding to the money order that everybody has heard that Dieng has
received from France; in short, la fête au village but within an urban con-
text. The drum here, in contrast to the one in Black Girl, is not a war drum
but rather the tom-tom that people beat when they are in a playful and
festive mood.
The scene in which Arame, one of Dieng’s wives, sings while washing
clothes is worth discussing. She is seated on a low stool inside the yard.
There is no musical instrument here but only the modulation and pitch of
the voice, along with inflections of the tone that convey hope:

(Sunu manda bi!)

Our money order!
This our money order
Our money order

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 Oh! Mother our money order
When it gets here life will be joyous
For us who live in dearth
And who go to bed together with scarcity
We also live in poverty in the daytime
We spend our time asking for credit and begging

However we are in peace Diagne

We still have a little to live by
You have made us proud Diagne
For all we do is just begging
May you have long life
We will never get tired Diagne [of praying for you]

Our money order!

Arame is interrupted by the irruption of the water seller into the yard of
the compound. In an angry voice, the man demands that Arame pay the
debt she owes him for water taken on credit. Arame angrily answers him
that she will pay when she gets the money (understand here when the
money order is paid to Dieng the husband). Arame then resumes her
singing:

We would like to pay all our debts

And help those who are close to us
However we are in peace Diagne
We still have a little to live by
Whosoever says that money is bad
That is because you do not have it
If you have money
You can buy anything you want.

Thus, the final device used by Sembène in Mandabi, as far as music and
voice are concerned, is the scene in which Dieng’s wife sings while work-
ing in the house (cooking, cleaning and washing) as shown above. The
performance of the song denotes a message of hope, a forward-looking
attitude on the part of Arame. This is in sharp contrast to the Sereer
mournful dirge at the end of Black Girl, when the French employer returns
Diouana’s belongings to her family in Dakar after her death in France.
Music in Mandabi is a positive element and renders the various moods and
moments of the characters. If music in Borom sarret is a tale of marginali-
zation, in contrast, in Mandabi, music is a tale of hope.

Emitaï
If we have Sereer chants in Black Girl, and a Wolof song in Mandabi, in
Emitaï (1972), we are in the presence of Diola culture. The Diola inhabit
the Casamance region in the south of Senegal. Emitaï chronicles an epi-
sode of the French colonial times in Africa, in particular during the Second
World War when the French administration needed African soldiers to go
and fight in France and requested the rice to feed the same soldiers. The

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 Figure 3: DVD cover Emitaï (French and Diola, French subtitles), Médiathèque des Trois Mondes
(M3M).

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 solution found by the French administration was to take by force the rice
from the Diola women who had hidden it. The women consider the rice as
the fruit of their sweat which they obtained from farming. As observed by
David Murphy (2000: 109), Emitaï is among Sembène’s most symbolic,
non-realistic works as the film-maker moves away from the social realism
of his earlier films. Contrary to his previous films, in Emitaï, Sembène does
not use stringed instruments; rather, in order to adhere to Diola culture
and customs, priority is given to drum and voice in the film and indeed the
beating of the drum permeates the whole film. If in Mandabi the Wolof
drum is played in a festive mood, in Emitaï the Diola drum is an instru-
ment of resistance (to French domination). Moreover, the drum is an
instrument of mystery, a form of language that only the initiated can com-
prehend. Thus, the French officer has to ask the African sergeant what the
meaning of the drum is; one can surmise that the permanent and consist-
ent thud created by the drum must be annoying for the French officers. In
effect, in Emitaï, Sembène uses the drum as a trope of difference, of foreign-
ness. Nevertheless, the presence of the drum is a normal feature if we take
into account the fact that the events depicted in the film take place in war-
time. The Diola drum is cut out from a tree trunk that is horizontally laid
down. It is used as a means of sending messages and, depending on the
number and duration, the receiver is able to decode the beats: there is
clear and present danger, the elders are called to a meeting at the shrine,
the soldiers of the French colonial army are about to attack the village.
Likewise, vocal expression has different meanings: when the men and
women are cultivating the rice field, the chant they intone is related to
work and labour; when the women fetch wood for cooking and when the
palm-wine tapper climbs the palm tree in order to harvest the palm wine,
all these activities are accompanied by singing. When the women refuse to
give away their rice, as punishment, they are assembled in the middle of
the village and told by the French commander that if they do not bring the
hidden rice, they will stay where they are. Thereupon, the women start
singing but this time it is a song of defiance, a battle of wills as to who is
going to give up first: the authorities or the women. Sembène goes further
by creating dialectics predicated on the pairing of voice with silence. The
film-maker uses silence as a form of expression to the effect that when the
French commander or the African sergeant talks to the villagers, the latter
choose not to answer as they feel they are oppressed. Thus, the silence of
the villagers in the face of the French authorities is a form of contempt.
When facing injustice and the uncontrolled use of force, silence can be a
powerful weapon, even if it has its limitations. How long can one be silent
in front of injustice? Sooner or later one has to speak up and that is the
reason why the elders call a meeting of the council at the shrine, in order
to discuss what attitude to adopt vis-à-vis the danger posed by the French.
In Emitaï, Sembène also uses chant and song as a source of confu-
sion. There is an episode in the film when the African soldiers’ discussion
bears on General de Gaulle and Marshal Pétain. In following his logic,
the African soldier rightly and correctly asks how a general can be above
a marshal, if we take into account the hierarchy that prevails in the
army. Actually, the African soldiers were not aware of the fact that the
Vichy government lost command and authority over most of its overseas

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 Figure 4: Emitaï: The women’s song of defiance. Still prepared by Samba Diop. Permission by Alain
Sembène.

territories (including French West Africa) and the exiled government of

Free France under the aegis of General de Gaulle was now in command.
Not only were the African soldiers chanting the name of Pétain a few
days earlier, but they woke up one day to see the photo of Pétain being
taken off the walls and being replaced by a poster showing a photo of de
Gaulle. Consequently, the African soldiers received an order not to sing
‘Pétain’. From that moment on, de Gaulle had to be praised. No wonder
the poor soldiers became confused. Moreover, they did not understand
anything about the complexities of French metropolitan politics.
Thus, both drum and voice serve as a means of resistance and defiance.
Djimeko, one of the elders, dies in combat. He had chosen to fight the French
rather than compromise. During Djimeko’s funeral, the song is a dirge that
befits his bravery. In this scene, vocal expression supersedes musical instru-
ment. Sembène’s tour de force in Emitaï resides in his clever and judicious
usage of nature’s noises: he renders the exact geographical reality and the
topography of the Casamance region, which is dominated by the mangrove.
Thus, because of the presence of so much water, the dugout is a convenient
means of transportation. One hears the constant noise made by the water
when the dugout is slowly gliding on the surface of the waters. In the same
order of things, the songs of the bird are heard as well as the bleating of the

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 goats and other noises made by pigs and hens. Thus, Sembène describes the
various activities of Diola society, in addition to showing the symbiosis that
exists between nature and the population. The Diola have a high respect for
their environment because they get their sustenance from nature and their
gods and goddesses reside within and across nature.

Faat Kine
When we consider Sembène’s film Faat Kine, which came out in 2001, there
is a big surprise in it as the film-maker makes use of music by Youssou Ndour,
a well-known musician in Senegal, Africa and beyond. It is important, how-
ever, to stress that Ndour did not write the musical score of the film. Rather,
there is a scene in the film where Faat Kine’s children’s celebrate their suc-
cess at their secondary-school final examination (the baccalauréat). Thus,
during the party, Ndour’s songs are played on a tape player and everybody is
dancing. If we compare Faat Kine to Xala (1975), an earlier film by Sembène,
in Xala there is an orchestra (Star Band) which performs during El Hadj
Abdou Kader Beye’s wedding. Beye, the main protagonist of the film, belongs
to the new bourgeoisie, the nouveaux riches and as such is a member of the
new African elite that has just replaced the French colonizer.
The contrast between the two films is actually parallel to the evolution
of Senegalese society. As a shrewd observer, Sembène notices that in the
1970s, only the rich (like Beye) had access to bands, mostly upon occa-
sions such as naming ceremonies and weddings. However, thirty years
later, not only has popular music changed in Senegal but it has also become
more democratic and egalitarian. Thanks to the prodigious technological
development of the tape player and cassette industries as well as of local
radios, almost everybody now has access to popular music and to mega
stars such as Youssou Ndour. Thus, if in Xala music is used by Sembène as
a social-class marker, in Faat Kine that marker disappears. Music in Faat
Kine is neutral, bland and undifferentiated except in the scene where
Ndour’s music is played. In the rest of the movie, we hear a repetition of the
notes of a piano telling us that daily life is monotonous and not much is
happening. Faat Kine, the urbane central character of the eponymous film,
wakes in the morning, goes to work as the manager of a petrol station and
then returns home, just like the majority of the people. Music is not ideo-
logical in Faat Kine whereas in most of Sembène’s films the film-maker uses
music as a platform to get a specific message across.

Conclusion
In conclusion, there is a clear-cut line in Sembène’s films, at least in the ones
that are discussed above: in his first films (Borom sarret, Black Girl and
Mandabi) he is an adept of the social realist mode, whereas with Emitaï, the
film-maker clearly departs from that mode. In the same order of things, in
the first three films, the film-maker makes abundant use of traditional African
instruments such as the kora, the xalam the drum, as well as traditional songs
in order to highlight the cultural codes that are inherent to the various
Senegalese ethnic groups that he is describing. He also uses the piano (or its
mechanical version, the pianola) and classical music as symbols of western
and European life, of French culture and civilization and of the French colo-
nial experience in Africa. However, in Emitaï, Sembène relies less on musical

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 instruments to convey messages; he relies mostly on nature and the noises
coming from it in order to describe faithfully the Diola people.
In the final analysis, Ousmane Sembène uses music and vocal expres-
sion as a form of writing to the effect that songs and music render the eth-
nic, linguistic and cultural customs of the various ethnic groups that
inhabit the Senegalese geographical space. At the same time, however, the
film-maker has not forgotten the French colonial experience in Africa and
the many disruptions that experience has caused to the lives of Africans. In
the films discussed above, Sembène attempts to show the beauty of African
culture thanks to the presence of music. In doing so, he asserts a certain
pride by putting a focus on traditional Senegalese ethnic musical instru-
ments such as the xalam, the kora and the drum. However, Sembène is also
careful and avoids an exaggerated focus on ethnicity. To that end, there is
a very modern substratum in his films as he treats local themes but also
opens up to universal ones. Voice is also an integral component as Sembène
uses in his films the griot praise tradition (Borom sarret), in addition to work
songs as evidenced by Arame in Mandabi. For Sembène, music is an art
form that is used to express specific messages but it is also a form of ethno-
graphic writing which beautifully complements the image.

Cited films
Sembène, Ousmane (1963), Borom sarret/The Cart Driver (20 min.), Les Actualités
Françaises/ Filmi Doomireew, France/Senegal, distr. M3M/New Yorker Video
(title: The Wagoner)/BFI.
—— (1966), La Noire de…/Black Girl (60 min.), Les Actualités Françaises/Filmi
Doomireew, France/Senegal, distr. M3M/New Yorker Films.
—— (1968), Mandabi/Le Mandat/The Money Order (90 min.), Filmi Doomireew/
Comptoir Français du Film, Senegal/France, distr. M3M/New Yorker Films.
—— (1972), Emitaï/Dieu du Tonnerre/God of Thunder (95 min.), Filmi Doomireew/
Myriam Smadja, Senegal/France, distr. M3M.
—— (1975), Xala/The Curse (116 min.), Filmi Doomireew/Société Nationale de
Cinéma, Senegal, distr. M3M/New Yorker Films.
—— (1976), Ceddo (120 min.), Filmi Doomireew, Senegal, distr. M3M/Homeciné.
—— (2001), Faat Kine (120 min.), ACCT/Canal & Horizons/EZEF/Stanley
Thomas Johnson Stiftung/California Newsreel/Films Terre Africaine/Filmi
Doomireew, France/Germany/Switzerland/USA/Cameroon/Senegal, distr.
California Newsreel.
Sembène, Ousmane and Faty Sow, Thierno (1988), Camp de Thiaroye (147 min.),
SNPC/Films Kajoor/SATPEC/ENAPROC, Senegal/Tunisia/Algeria, distr. M3M/
New Yorker Films.

References
Bakari, Imruh (2000), ‘Introduction’, in June Givanni (ed.), Symbolic Narratives/
African Cinema: Audiences, Theory and the Moving Image, London: British Film
Institute, pp. 3–24.
Bebey, Francis (1975), African Music: A People’s Art, New York: Lawrence Hill.
Chion, Michel (1995), La Musique au cinéma, Paris: Fayard.
Diop, Samba (2004), African Francophone Cinema, New Orleans: University Press
of the South.

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 Gugler, Josef (2003), African Film: Re-Imagining a Continent, Bloomington, Oxford
and Cape Town: Indiana University Press, James Currey and David Philip.
Lebeuf, Annie (1960), ‘Le rôle de la femme dans l’organisation politique des
sociétés africaines’, in Denise Paulme (ed.), Femmes d’Afrique noire, Paris:
Mouton, pp. 93–119.
Murphy, David (2000), Sembène: Imagining Alternatives in Film and Fiction, Oxford
and Trenton, NJ: James Currey and Africa World Press.
Niang, Sada (1996), ‘Orality in the films of Ousmane Sembène’, in Sheila Petty
(ed.), A Call to Action: The Films of Ousmane Sembène. Trowbridge, UK: Flicks
Books, pp. 56–66.
Thackway, Melissa (2003), Africa Shoots Back: Alternative Perspectives in Sub-
Saharan Francophone African Film, Bloomington, Oxford and Cape Town:
Indiana University Press, James Currey and David Philip.
Vieyra, Paulin S. (1972), Ousmane Sembène Cinéaste, Paris: Présence Africaine.

Suggested citation
Diop, S. (2009), ‘Music and narrative in five films by Ousmane Sembène’, Journal
of African Cinemas 1: 2 pp. 207–224, doi: 10.1386/jac.1.2.207/1

Contributor details
Samba Diop teaches African literatures in French and English as well as African
cinema. His special research interest is African epics in Senegal and Gambia. He
has edited and translated versions of the epics of Ndiadiane Ndiaye and of El Hadj
Omar Tall. He has also edited two books on postcolonial studies (Fictions africaines
et postcolonialisme; L’Écrivain peut-il créer une civilisation?). He is the author of two
books on African studies (Discours nationaliste et identité ethnique à travers le roman
sénégalais and African Francophone Cinema) and of one volume of short stories (À
Bondowé, les lueurs de l’aube).
Contact: The Institute of Cultural Studies and Oriental Languages (IKOS), University
of Oslo, Norway.
E-mail: sbkdiop@yahoo.co.uk

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