Having decided to give up smoking, I find myself tonight unable to sleep. It's not too late to pop out to see Souleymane Faye play his second set but since I'm in my pyjamas I decided I'd sit down instead and try to make headway again with the book I have wanted to write for about the last eight years. Staring at the blank page, unable now to sleep or write, I am reminded by this photo (of Baaba Maal's guitarists) of where this whole thing started.

At the end of 2001 I came to Dakar to write my dissertation about religion and Senegalese pop music and got it into my head that I could interview Baaba Maal, the musician I most admired, not just for his startlingly crystal voice and his moving, spiritually-infused lyrics, but also for his dedication to social and developmental issues. Through a contact in London I got the phone number of his manager in Dakar and when I arrived, terrified and unable to communicate with anyone, I tried giving him a ring. Of course I could interview him, the guy said, tomorrow would be fine.

Such was my naivety then that I thought it was really going to happen. What ensued was a month that touched me so deeply that Senegal became my life but the one thing that didn't happen was my interview with Baaba Maal. Desperate, I set off for Podor when I heard he had gone to his home town, and even slept the night in his brother's guesthouse, sad to find out that he had gone on to Matam, too far for me to go in the few days of my trip that remained. I didn't care all that much, because I had no schedule and no deadline to fulfil and anyway, by then I knew that one day I would meet my musical hero and ask him all the questions I wanted.

Since then I have managed to scrape a living through music journalism and I've had the opportunity to meet Baaba on many occasions. A couple of years ago he asked me why I had never interviewed him, but I said nothing. Last year I was commissioned a piece on him by a magazine but months of ringing various people came to nothing: it seemed it was never meant to be.

I still admire him, more now for his truly honest way of speaking about the things that many in and around Africa are afraid to broach, but I think the days for an interview are well and truly gone. Someone once suggested I write a book entitled 'How I Never Met Baaba Maal' and all the amazing people I met in the meantime. Sitting here at two in the morning, a blank page once again open infront of me, it doesn't seem like such a bad idea.