Samir Hussein/Getty Images

Youssou N'Dour conquered the world in the 1980s with his African fusion music. Now the Senegalese pop superstar is returning his attention to his ethnically diverse homeland, exploring some more of West Africa's overlooked grooves.

The singer is the master of the infectious style known as mbalax, a combination of West African polyrhythms, rock, and reggae filtered through Cuban son (which has rhythms rooted in West African music). American audiences first heard his Arabian-inflected wail on Peter Gabriel's 1986 hit "In Your Eyes," and experienced his charismatic performances in 1988 when he co-headlined Amnesty International's Human Rights Now! tour alongside Gabriel, Bruce Springsteen, Sting, and Tracy Chapman. A series of international hit records followed, from 1989's "The Lion" to the 1994 trilingual dance floor anthem "7 Seconds," with Neneh Cherry. All looked confidently outwards to the rest of the world, turning N'Dour into Africa's most visible and popular vocalist.

His latest album, Rokku Mi Rokka, looks inward to Senegal's hinterlands, drawing inspiration from the nation's northern provinces, bordering on Mauritania and Mali. The album came about, in part, through an encounter with Bah Mody, a popular singer from the northern Tukulor people. N'Dour ended up inviting him into the studio to collaborate on many of the songs. While working with his old comrades from Super Étoile, the band in which he first became a force in African music in the 1970s, N'Dour composed a series of tunes based on the traditional Tukulor wango rhythm (though the album opens with a celebratory mbalax tune "4-4-44").

"Doing the same thing for more than 20 years, the same music, it's going to be really tired," says N'Dour, 48, who brings a finely honed ensemble from Super Étoile to Zellerbach Hall on Saturday, July 26, for a Cal Performances concert. "I'm coming from a country where there's a lot of diversity of music. I feel a responsibility to bring other music from my country, not only the popular styles. I feel like an ambassador, bringing the music coming from the north and the south. This music is interesting, more maybe than mbalax."

N'Dour's musical mission is to raise awareness of these styles both within Senegal and on the world stage. And he wants to remind his audiences that Africa is the source for much of the world's popular music. "The music tries to tell people that the roots of blues and reggae and Latin music [is from Africa]," N'Dour says.

page 1 | 2