The Saint-Louis International Jazz Festival has been held every May since 1993, and it has transformed the city into one of West Africa's great musical destinations for a week each year. The festival takes over the island of N'Dar — stages appear in squares, on hotel terraces, and in the streets themselves, and the normally quiet colonial grid fills with musicians, audiences, and an atmosphere that is genuinely unlike anything else in the region.
The programming mixes big international names with African jazz artists and younger performers from Senegal and the wider francophone world. The music runs from traditional jazz through to Afrobeat, mbalax, and more eclectic experimental work. If you are anywhere in Senegal in May and can get to Saint-Louis for even one night of the festival, it is worth the journey. Accommodation books up months in advance; plan accordingly.