Assane Gaye, the grain of a voice and the weight of the years September 6, 2026

“Thiapali Bonbon” sometimes comes back without warning. A video emerges on social networks, a few notes are enough, and this voice returns with disconcerting ease, intact in the memory of those who knew it in the mid-2000s. In Assane Gaye there was a way of attacking a song, with this deep, thick, slightly rocky timbre, which gave his words an immediately recognizable color, before letting the voice climb with a surprisingly flexible power, without losing the depth which made it unique. He had a voice that occupied space, a voice that came from afar and which, when it found its refrain, could give the piece a breadth that the arrangement could never have produced. It was this voice which had made him one of the most noted young singers of his time, this voice which had earned him the nickname “Thione 2”, this voice above all which had carried “Thiapali Bonbon” to the nights of Dakar and installed Assane Gaye in the ears of an audience which, at the time, promised him a long career.

You have to listen to Assane Gaye again today to appreciate what was special about his appearance. Mbalax then experienced a strong circulation of new voices, each seeking their space between the great figures already established and a generation who dreamed of succeeding them, but the singer from Kaolack had an advantage that is not easily created. From the first sentences, his voice had a density which made it possible to identify him without needing to look at the name written on the cover or the screen, with a way of laying down the syllables, of retaining certain notes and pushing the following ones which gave him a vocal signature long before his career had time to establish itself.

It is this voice that will carry his story, but also, in a way, complicate it, because when an artist is identified very early on with a voice as singular and with a hit as powerful as “Thiapali Bonbon”, the public ends up expecting each new song to reproduce the same sensation. In Kaolack, however, Assane Gaye is not yet “Thione 2”. He is a young man who sings, who searches for his path and who goes through several professions before understanding that music can become more than a passion.

Everything is speeding up

The song finds its audience, its performer finds his nickname and Assane Gaye enters this envied category of artists who are immediately asked what they will do after their first success. In 2006, “Ngeum” gave a more lasting form to this revelation, with a repertoire including “Thiapeli”, “Sunum Rew”, “Baye Niass”, “Ngeum”, “Teylou Len” and “Gambia”. The hit had opened the door and the album was to allow people to stay in the house.

And behind the success of “Thiapali Bonbon”, there was indeed a voice capable of carrying several universes, a voice that we find in “Baye Niass”, “Mandou”, “Yeene” or even “Xaley Gambia”, so many titles which allow us to find the artist beyond the song to which time has ended up summarizing his journey. But that’s often how popular memory works. She chooses a song and drops part of the story.

For Assane Gaye, she chose “Thiapali Bonbon”. However, the title alone already says a lot. It tells of a period, a way of producing hits, an audience, nights and above all the arrival of a voice which had enough character for us to wonder how far it could go.

In 2010, his victory in the Nescafé African Revolution competition confirmed the hopes placed in him, but his name will gradually become rarer in Senegalese musical news, as the years pass, new generations arrive and those who occupied the stages in the mid-2000s must now fight against another difficulty which is that of remaining visible in a world where the public very quickly renews its habits.

It is at this moment that the second chapter of Assane Gaye begins, the one that listeners know less about, that of an artist whose voice remains, but whose media presence is reduced, until his name ends up appearing more in memories than in programs. We had lost sight of him. By no longer seeing him on the big stages, no longer hearing his name in musical conversations and no longer finding his figure in the evenings which had made his reputation, Assane Gaye had ended up entering this vague zone where artists disappear before even having ceased to exist.

Around him, the stories multiplied, each with its version of the story, its explanations, its certainties. A lot was said about his absence, about his trajectory, about what he had become. But Assane had chosen another way to respond to the noise. He had retreated to Gambia.

Far from the Senegalese spotlight, he continued to do what he knew how to do. Restaurants, small stages, evenings where proximity to the public replaces large crowds, he continued his musical path with a discretion that contrasted with the years when his voice and his songs occupied a much more visible place in the musical landscape. The Gambia became its refuge, but also its territory of continuity. He still sang there.

A less linear sequence

He was still working. He brought to life what, for some, already belonged to the past. This is where we find him in 2024, during a Sidy Diop evening in Gambia. Assane Gaye takes the stage and, in a few notes, reminds us that a voice does not disappear because we no longer hear it for a while.

What he once had, this presence, this way of holding a song and inhabiting it, had not left the man. The years had changed the decor, perhaps the habits, perhaps the public’s outlook, but they had not erased the essentials.

Anyone who thought they had lost Assane Gaye discovered above all that they had lost track of him. But there is, in this story, an irony that the singer himself had anticipated. In one of his songs, he launched this phrase which takes on particular resonance today: “Soo leen ma namate, xool leen ma ci weer wi. » If you ever miss me, look at me in the moon.

He probably couldn’t have known how much those words would end up being like his own story. We no longer saw him, so we talked about his absence. He was elsewhere, a few hours away, in the Gambian nights, continuing to sing.

Assane Gaye had therefore disappeared from view without disappearing from music. And when he reappeared, he didn’t need to demonstrate that he was still there. A few notes were enough. The voice was still there, as if it had been quietly waiting for those who had forgotten it to look up again.

So, if you ever miss Assane Gaye, there’s no need to dig through old posters, archives or memories. Do as he sang. Look up at the moon.

By Amadou KÉBÉ