As the Muslim Voices festival continues, it's great to see posts by David and Hussein--please check them out (and comment/Digg/StumbleUpon/etc., please, as you like; it would be fantastic to extend the conversation).

Over at Religion Dispatches, Hussein makes the excellent point that a performing arts festival dedicated to the cultural and artistic diversity of the Muslim community around the world has very little in the way of American Muslim representation. It's an interesting choice, or telling oversight. Either way, as  Hussein writes, it poses Islam as something "out there" rather than part of our own cultural fabric.

Speaking of representation: After reading David's trenchant comments about his own response to the Youssou N'Dour film "I Bring What I Love," I started poking around for some background  material on how the album "Egypt" was received in Senegal, and came up with this from May 2004, as reported by Banning Eyre and Sean Barlow of Afropop:

Afropop: How has the reaction to your new music been at home?

Youssou N'Dour: Good. It's not like the classic Youssou N'Dour, but people get the album and now they're starting to talk about it. I am very happy for the reception. People are okay with the words, they are behind every leader of brotherhood. People are proud, saying I'm right about the words, the story, the memory--I'm very happy. People often say "He's wrong!" But I'm happy that people say "you're right!" regarding what I say. They feel the music. They know this is not music for Thiosanne [Youssou's nightclub]. They know diversity--a word I've been talking about for ten years--diversity. I refuse to be going in just one direction. I have the possibility to touch different directions, and it's great for me.

Hmm. That comment does not exactly square with what the film "I Bring What I Love" sets forth as the Senegalese reaction.  It's all to the better of course if, as David puts it, "the fight only reached the level of some nasty editorials and a few pulled ads." Was Youssou minimizing a bigger blowback back home for the benefit of foreign journalists? Or did the film maker misrepresent, on some level, the Senegalese reaction and thereby making Youssou's home public seem far more reactionary than they actually are? What really happened?

Last night, I saw the Youssou N'Dour documentary "I Bring What I Love", which has its official opening Saturday night at the Brooklyn Academy of Music as part of the Muslim Voices festival. The timing for the film, and the whole festival, seems particularly ripe, especially after President Obama's speech in Cairo today.

The film gives a brief outline of the Senegalese superstar's life and career trajectory (aspiring local boy with griot roots, local star, major African talent, global force with a serious sociopolitical conscience who runs around with Bono and testifies before Congress, etc.) before turning the lens on N'Dour's long-gestating "Egypt" album, a project that married N'Dour's bronze-patinaed voice and a plush Egyptian orchestra with explicitly religious lyrics that celebrate Senegal's singular Sufi culture and tradition.

Though the filmaker, Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi, never quite decides if she wants to make a narrative documentary or a concert film, the movie is beautifully shot, with stunning visuals filmed in as far-flung locales as Dakar and Touba, Senegal, London, and New York--not to mention Fes, Morocco, where N'Dour and his partners, Egyptian producer Fathy Salama and Senegalese composer Kabou Gueye premiered the project in 2004. (Having been there myself for the occasion, I can testify that there was some very special magic in that locale--which is one of the most important and historic centers of Sufism, Islamic education, and a city with an extraordinary and intertwined Jewish, Christian, and Muslim legacy. That, plus the actual outdoor concert venue is very pretty and dramatically lit for such performances.)

What should have been the heart of the film, as far as I'm concerned, was the sharp distinction in critical and popular reactions to "Egypt." In Europe and the US, the album was rapturously received--N'Dour received his first Grammy Award for it--but at home, N'Dour was greeted with fierce anger from local religious conservatives who excoriated the pop star for daring to wade publicly into religious turf ("metaphysical quicksand," as one newspaper called it).

While not exactly glossing over the controversy, we never hear directly from his opponents; indeed, it's full of hazy hagiography (and I say that as even as a devoted Youssou fan.) And when N'Dour finally gets his Grammy, and the whole capital of Dakar seems to turn out in the streets to greet his triumph, we never learn why the tide of Senegalese public opinon has turned. (Does American approbation really count for so much?) Apparently, when the highly respected Senegalese religious griot singer Mustapha M'baye recorded a duet with N'Dour in praise of the prophet Muhammad, public opinion began to shift more decisively. We see the duo recording together, but the whole arc is never made fully explicit in the film.

Moreover, in absolutely wedding herself to documenting, in strict chronological fashion, the international tour for "Egypt". Accordingly, Vasarhelyi concludes her film in a weirdly abrupt way: we see N'Dour backstage at Carnegie Hall, striding towards the stage. That's it. I have a pretty fair guess of why that is--the union regulations on filming and recording at Carnegie are famously strict--but then why bother at all? It's a totally unsatisfying conclusion.

Nonetheless, "I Bring What I Love" brims with wonderful footage, especially of Youssou's live performances and of the incredible yearly pilgrimage to the Grand Mosque of Touba, the holy city founded by Cheikh Amadou Bamba, a great spiritual master. For any fan of Youssou N'Dour or African music, not to mention anyone interested in Sufism or even Islam more generally, "I Bring What I Love" is a must-see--and the controversy at the heart of the film is ever more relevant.