This 16-track compilation covers Senegalese singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist
Youssou N'Dour's Columbia Records period, from 1991 to 1996. Perhaps the most popular pop culture figure in Senegal's history,
N'Dour created a music of his own from various sources, which he called "mbalax" and which incorporates everything from jazz, soul, hard R&B styles, hip-hop, and even Cuban samba, and juxtaposes them with the folk melodies and polyrhythms of his native land. The cuts here, particularly "Old Man," "New Africa," "Yo le Le, (Fulani Rhythm)," and the covers of
Smokey Robinson's "Don't Look Back," and
Lennon and
McCartney's "Ob-La-Di-Ob-La-Da," reveal
N'Dour's idiosyncratic, yet very accessible grasp and integration of Western and African pop styles. ~ Thom Jurek