7 Seconds: The Best of Youssou N'Dour (CD - 2004)

Personnel: Youssou N'Dour, Neneh Cherry (vocals); Abdoulaye Diouf (spoken vocals); Kevin Armstrong, Pape Oumar Ngom, Jimi Mbaye (guitar); Thiemo Koite (soprano saxophone, alto saxophone); Issa Cissocko (tenor saxophone); Brad Wheeler, Branford Marsalis (saxophone); Ron Meza (trumpet); Glenn Ferris (trombone); Habib Faye (keyboards, bass); Ibrahima Cisse, Jean Philippe Rykiel, Mac Fallows (keyboards); Jerry Wonder, Andy Shafte (programming); Wyclef Jean (background vocals).

Producers include: Youssou N'Dour, Jean Philippe Rykiel, Habib Faye, Jonny $, Booga Bear.

Compilation producer: Jerry Rappaport.

Recorded between 1992 & 2000. Includes liner notes by Kristopher Spencer.

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 minimize