PARCELLES 16 shares its title with the address of his dead uncle’s house in the Parcelles neighborhood of Dakar, Senegal. Mbye was born in Dakar, and emigrated to Minnesota with his parents when he was two years old. In 2022, he went back to Senegal with his mom for his uncle’s funeral.
“It was crazy to see my family back in Africa as an adult,” he says. He shares his full name, Papa Neneh Mbye—roughly translated as “little dad” with his grandfather—and he says all his aunties and uncles on his dad’s side call him “dad” because that’s what they called his grandpa. He says seeing his mom interact with her sister reminded him of his own relationships with his siblings when they were kids. “It was almost like I was seeing them as children,” he says. His new perspective re-ordered and re-classified his relationships to not only his family, but to his homeland.
In that way, Parcelles 16 is Mbye’s coming-of-age record—a musical journey about starting life as a passenger, a child just along for the ride, and discovering that even when you’re mature enough to drive yourself, you’re never all that sure of where you’re going, even if you know where you’ll eventually end up.
Read the full article + interview on MPLS ST PAUL Mag
