Power pop: Youssou N'Dour joins Bono and Bob Geldof onstage at a 2007 German concert against poverty. Danny Gohlke/AFP/Getty Images

Bandstands and recording studios aren't the only outlets for N'Dour's evangelical impulse. For many years, he has been a Goodwill Ambassador for UNICEF, and lent his time, money, and image to improving the lives of his compatriots in projects ranging from immunization to Internet access. As one of the first African pop stars to emerge in the '80s with a truly global following, N'Dour is well placed to spearhead such initiatives. He sees the Internet as the perfect vehicle to connect widely dispersed families and provide entrepreneurs with new access to markets. "Eventually the Internet can replace what we in Africa call the council tree, the tree in the center of a village where people come to debate the affairs of the community," N'Dour says.

Born in Dakar in 1959, N'Dour grew up in a family of musicians. His mother was a griot who taught him the basics of traditional Wolof music, such as tasso, a syncopated talking form akin to rap, and bakou, a traditional chant. He started performing publicly as a child at neighborhood gatherings, developing an impassioned style that gave him a presence unusual in someone so young.

By his mid-teens N'Dour was performing with Senegal's leading pop group, the Star Band, and had been dubbed “Le Petit Prince de Dakar.” In the early '80s he recorded a series of albums including the mbalax classic "Immigres." All the while he maintained close connections with Senegal, performing frequently in Dakar, where he opened a recording studio and a nightclub. His 10-member band Super Étoile has virtually the same personnel as when he founded it, and his music often extols traditional sectors of society, as in his ode to people who work the land, "Beykat."

"My own extended family comes from the village," N'Dour says. "When I write a song like this, where I have injected a bit of political commentary, I want to help defend the farmers interests. This song received a very positive reaction in the country."

Part of what makes N'Dour's music so potent is the way he anchors his songs in Senegalese reality, while drawing from so many different musical influences. He celebrates the liberating power of education, the dignity of work, and importance of respecting women, while also describing the challenges of life in West Africa, as in his mournful, reggae-inflected "Mademba (The Electricity Is Out Again)." With each new album, N'Dour offers up a message on the necessity of maintaining traditional community while embracing the world's sounds.

"My music has been characterized by a spirit of traveling, of journey," N'Dour says. "I've found out that the further I go from my origins the more I find myself coming back to them for inspiration. What I'm doing right now seems to me to be the summing up of where I've been and where I come from."

Born and raised in Los Angeles, Andrew Gilbert is a Berkeley-based freelance writer who covers jazz and world music for the San Francisco Chronicle, Boston Globe, San Jose Mercury News, and San Diego Union-Tribune. His CD reviews air on KQED's California Report. His piece on Sonny Rollins appeared in the March/April edition of California.

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