The Adventure of Buying Vinyl in the Senegal

by jchapstick

So we're in downtown Dakar, Senegal, "The Capital of West Africa", a huge, smoggy metropolis where there's desert sand in the streets and goats with saggy teats tied up on the sidewalks. Minarets mark the skyline, and many men dress in robes. With all the tourism, Dakar is also the home of the most persistent, pestering hustler kids in the world, the legendary faux-types. They follow you like crazy, hoping for a bit of change, or more likely, a finder's fee from whatever vendors you might visit in your travels.

We'd been there less than a week, but after just a couple of taxi trips with the car radio blaring, I decided that the Senegalese make my favorite music of all the millions of styles on the continent. The Koranic singing and the surrounding desert have a haunting, lonesome influence on the pop stuff, and the ancient tradition of kora playing makes for wicked electric guitar picking. Especially on those scratchy old 60's and 70's LPs, which sell for a small ransom back home in the West. On the second day of our week-long trip I found some old records at a street stand, and the vendor led me back to his house to peruse a pile of LPs stored outdoors under a tarp. This guy had stuff from all over West Africa, mostly smaller bands I'd never heard of, but bigger names, too, like Franco, Fela, and Ebenezer Obey. There was also a mess of classic disco and dance 12"s, American soul, old Arabic singers and stuff from other French-speaking countries. My appetite whetted, a few days later I decided to brave the central market on foot.

I had already experienced two attempted robberies on the street in Dakar, so this time I left everything of value at the hotel, including my wedding ring. I went out in thin shorts, busted trainers and a t-shirt, with only a record cover in my hand to show what I was looking for, because my French stinks. No surprise, the second I left the hotel I was followed and hounded by a young faux-type, who would never leave my side until I returned to the hotel hours later. The money was in my shoe, 30 bucks or so in Senegalese currency.

After a long walk in the insane heat, we reached Sandaga market, found a CD seller, and showed him my album cover. In American-accented English, the CD seller said smoothly, "Oh, for that kind of thing you have to go to the Black Market." But he looked at me like I was an idiot for wanting records in the first place. Good sign. Imagine. This is a street market in central Dakar, Senegal, a city where the vast majority lives in tin-roof slums with open sewers. In this market there's total chaos in every direction, thousands of people buying and selling everything from a live chicken to a translucent toilet seat. Nobody's paying taxes on any of this informal commerce, and yet one of the sellers tells me to go to the "Black Market"!?!?! I'm like, 'If this guy calls it the Black Market, it must really be the Black Market.' So I am a little scared, but the hustler kid shows me the way.

We walk another ten minutes through the heat, trash, livestock and traffic to find it--a whole city block of shanty buildings and narrow alleys oozing grey water, little kids covered with mud, a totally fucking horribly scary shithole. Salle de Vin, I think they called it.

We approach the entrance and I am just mobbed by young, loud, dirty, stoned and/or drunken crazy-looking dudes, asking me what I need, literally shoving each other out of the way to get my business. I show them the record cover and they start bickering over who's going to get what part of the sale, who's going to lead me around, what size of a cut my faux-type is going to get, etc. Heated discussion. I lean on a car to wait for them to figure it out. Eventually, what I guess is the Main Dude of the Black Market emerges from out of the spooky entrance, a cigarette in his mouth and an ice-cold look in his eye. He looks me up and down, tells the other guys to lay off and leads me into the center of the block, which is like the freakiest walk I have ever taken.

There's broken and salvaged crap everywhere, scrap re-bar and wood with nails sticking out, cast-off plastic parts of old appliances, dirty piles of cloth, whatever. There's no electricity, so everything's dark except where the sun peeks in. The odor is noisome, as probably dozens of people live and defecate here. The place is like the Senegalese version of a thrift store, where various private scroungers hawk their used furniture, used washing machines, you name it. But this being a country that's 95 percent Muslim, there's also a little baby mosque in there, and guys praying.

We get into the inner sanctum, which is a furniture factory of sorts, where the Main Dude has a crew building couches and coffee tables. It's actually kind of nice in the middle there, with all the new furniture to sit on. And it's great to get out of the insane heat, but still my senses are screaming for me to run out of here and never look back. I have definitely given my self over to forces beyond my control. Everyone is yelling at each other, looking at me like a piece of meat. The Dude offers me a cigarette, which I refuse politely. He sends someone to get me a stick of gum and proceeds to roll himself a thin joint. He doesn't offer, but I am in no mood to be stoned, anyway.

By this time I am thinking there's no way I am getting out of here with any of my possessions. I am also thinking, if I get out of here in one piece, this will be a great story. There's like 5-10 people milling around staring at me, yelling at each other and me in Wolof and French, looking hella menacing, while the main Mafioso and I are negotiating prices, him totally stoned, running these dudes like they're his personal army.

Senegalese are GENIUSES at the price war, unfortunately, and this was a conversation seriously impaired by the language barrier, even with the translation services of my young hustler friend. So despite my Herculean efforts, I end up agreeing--after like 15 of the longest minutes of my life--that I will pay him an exorbitant 12 bucks apiece for the records. Triumphant, he sends his minions off in all directions.

After a few minutes they start coming back one at a time with various bags and boxes of records in all states of disarray, mildew and fucked-up-edness. But in the business of digging for 40-year-old records in one of the poorest places on Earth, you can't care about condition, and I am thrilled to be seeing the prize at last. I go through the bags and boxes as fast as I can. Like any other pile of records, this one is 95% crap: bad 80's French singers, The Best of Nana Mouskouri, big band reissue box sets, Paul Mauriat, Olivia Newton-John, and the like. But there's also a good measure of West African originals. I pull out about 10, knowing I can't afford them all at his price. There are some real finds in there, including two copies of the same Orchesta Baobab LP (one broken) and some other 60's and 70's Senegalese things, a hot-looking record by a group from Guinea-Bissau, even an early LP by this Haitian guy Coupe Cloue, who I've been looking for forever.

I take off my shoe, pull out my sweaty money and buy the few records I can afford. Having gone this far, I am really bummed I can't get the other 5 or so that are in my pile. I'm also kinda paranoid, still not convinced that these guys are going to let me leave without some kind of struggle. But since I have nothing to lose, I ask the Dude if he'll just let me have the other ones as a gift. The hustler kid helps me convince him that nobody is ever going to come along again asking for old LPs, and he seems to see the point.

But then he yells, "Do you have any more money?" all angry. I tell him no, which is the truth, and he barks, "Stand up!" I comply and turn out my empty pockets. Get this: the dude fucking frisks me! While he's got his hand between my legs, I'm thinking, "Man, I am so glad I don't have anything else of value." Clearly the records are meaningless to him, just a means to the ultimate goal of cleaning out this dumb-ass foreigner.

But in the end, he did show a refreshing bit of humanity, giving me the other records for free, out of the kindness of his heart. I ended up with about 12 of them all told, total gems, if dirty and scratched, with water-damaged covers. We both agreed that we wished we could speak English (him) and Wolof (me) so that we could have a real conversation. On my way out he even took pity and gave me back enough of my money to catch a taxi. I gave the faux type a ride back to the hotel so he could find another mark.