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Marabouts in Senegalese popular music In recent years a new genre of popular song devoted to the praise of marabouts or Sufi leaders has emerged on the Senegalese musical horizon. Almost every Senegalese popular singer, including international stars like Youssou Ndour and Baaba Maal, has a repertoire that includes laudatory songs to leaders within the various Sufi tariqas that claim followings in Senegal. The emergence of this new genre of song is derived from two sources: first, the praise-singing tradition of the griot or verbal artist, and, second, the numerous Sufi ceremonies that take place during the Islamic year and of which singing is an integral component (Mc Laughlin 1997). While the most conspicuous manifestations of Sufism in Senegalese popular culture are associated with the indigenous Mouride tariqa whose founder, Cheikh Amadou Bamba, is the subject of numerous praise songs, the original emergence of the Sufi popular song is more closely linked to the Tivaouane zawvya of the Tijaniyya, the home of the maraboutic family who are heirs to El Haj Malik Sy (c. 18551922). A precursor of the Sufi popular song emerged as a response to infighting over succession to the leadership of the tariqa among the Sy family during the 1950s, a quarrel that is repeating itself in the 1990s as serious new rifts over succession to the caliphate have given rise to vituperative public manifestations of rivalry among the various pretenders to the position of spiritual leadership. But it is not only spiritual leadership that is at stake. Senegalese marabouts have long been implicated in the political workings of their country, frequently serving as intermediaries between the political elite and the general population and have, in the past, been known to
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