Youssou N’Dour, The Lion

Album of the Week, June 20, 2026 We’ve met Senegalese superstar Youssou N’Dour in the context of his work with Peter Gabriel; he might still be best known for his incandescent vocal on “In Your Eyes,” and we’ve heard his contributions to Peter’s all-star project Passion. But even before this global success Youssou was, by any measure, a star. It just took the world a while to catch up with him. Youssou was born in 1958 in the Senegalese capital city of Dakar. He was already performing at age 12, and made many appearances with the Star Band, the house band of the most popular nightclub in Dakar at the time, the Miami Club. A number of bands eventually spun off the Star Band, including Orchestra Baobab and Étoile de Dakar; Youssou was a breakout star in the latter. The band fused traditional Senegalese music with Latin dance music, jazz and soul influences to form the mbalax style, which rapidly became the leading musical form in Senegal, Mauritania and Gambia due to its spread via…