Youssou N'Dour

Youssou N'Dour (, Yuusu Nduur; also known as Youssou Madjiguène Ndour; born 1 October 1959) is a Senegalese singer, songwriter, musician, composer, occasional actor, businessman, and politician.

He started performing at age 12 and would later perform regularly with the Star Band, Dakar's most popular group during the 1970s.

Despite N'Dour's maternal connection to the traditional griot caste, he was not raised in that tradition, which he learned instead from his sibling.

Although patrilineally from the noble N'Dour family, his parents' world-view encouraged a modern outlook, leaving him open to two cultures and thereby inspiring N'Dour's identity as a modern griot.

As a Mouride disciple, taalibé in Wolof, a Muslim of the Mouride brotherhood, one of the large four Sufi orders in Senegambia, he often incorporated aspects of Islamic music and chants into his work.

At the age of 15, Youssou N'Dour joined Super Diamono and, in 1975, toured with the band in West Africa.

In 1976 when N'Dour was 16 years old, he signed a contract to sing with Ibra Kasse's Star Band at Kasse's Miami club in Dakar where he would become a sensation.

In 1978, N'Dour would follow as several members of the Star Band left to form Étoile de Dakar, a band that made important contributions to Senegal's newly evolving musical style called mbalax which incorporated traditional Senegalese music into the Latin styles that had dominated Senegalese popular music.

Although they quickly became one of the city's most popular bands, the group was short-lived due to internal problems.

By 1991, he had opened his own recording studio, and, by 1995, his own record label, Jololi.

N'Dour is one of the most celebrated African musicians in history.

His mix of traditional Senegalese mbalax with eclectic influences ranging from Cuban rumba to hip hop, jazz, and soul has won him an international fan base of millions.

In the West, N'Dour has collaborated with Peter Gabriel, Axelle Red, Sting, Alan Stivell, Bran Van 3000, Neneh Cherry, Wyclef Jean, Paul Simon, Bruce Springsteen, Tracy Chapman, James Newton Howard, Branford Marsalis, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Dido, Lou Reed, Bruce Cockburn, and others.

The New York Times described his voice as an "arresting tenor, a supple weapon deployed with prophetic authority".

N'Dour's work absorbed the entire Senegalese musical spectrum, often filtered through the lens of genre-defying rock or pop music from outside Senegalese culture.

In July 1993, Africa Opera composed by N'Dour premiered at the Opéra Garnier for the French Festival Paris quartier d'été.

In 1994, N'Dour released his biggest international hit single, the trilingual "7 Seconds", a duet sung with Neneh Cherry.

He wrote and performed the official anthem of the 1998 FIFA World Cup with Axelle Red "La Cour des Grands (Do You Mind If I Play)".

Folk Roots magazine described him as the African Artist of the Century.

He toured internationally for thirty years.

Étoile de Dakar split into two groups: Étoile 2000 and Super Étoile de Dakar.

The latter group included N'Dour, guitarist Jimi Mbaye, bassist Habib Faye, and tama (talking drum) player Assane Thiam.

Super Étoile de Dakar produced four albums on cassette in just a few months and eventually evolved into N'Dour's backing band.

N'Dour was nominated as Goodwill Ambassador of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) on 16 October 2000.

In Senegal, N'Dour became a powerful cultural icon, actively involved in social issues.

In 2002, N'Dour was honoured with a Prince Claus Award, under that year's theme "Languages and transcultural forms of expression".

In 2004, Rolling Stone described him as, "perhaps the most famous singer alive" in Senegal and much of Africa and in 2023, the same publication ranked him at number 69 on its list of the 200 Greatest Singers of All Time.

He won his first American Grammy Award (best contemporary world music album) for his CD Egypt in 2005.

He is the proprietor of L'Observateur, one of the widest-circulation newspapers in Senegal, the radio station RFM (Radio Future Medias) and the TV channel TFM.

In 2006, N'Dour was cast as Olaudah Equiano in the film Amazing Grace.

Ethnically, N'Dour is Serer, born to a Serer father and a Toucouleur mother.

However, culturally, N'Dour is Wolof.

He was born in Dakar.

In 2006, N'Dour played the role of the African-British abolitionist Olaudah Equiano in the movie Amazing Grace, which chronicled the efforts of William Wilberforce to end slavery in the British Empire.

He is the subject of the award-winning films Return to Gorée (2007) directed by Pierre-Yves Borgeaud and Youssou N'Dour: I Bring What I Love (2008) directed by Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi, which were released around the world.

In 2008, N'Dour offered one of his compositions, Bébé, for the French singer Cynthia Brown.

In 2011, N'Dour was awarded an honorary doctoral degree in music from Yale University.

From April 2012 to September 2013, he was Senegal's Minister of Tourism.

N'Dour helped develop a style of popular Senegalese music known by all Senegambians (including the Wolof) as mbalax, a genre that has sacred origins in the Serer music njuup tradition and ndut initiation ceremonies.

In 2013, N'Dour won a share of Sweden's $150,000 Polar music prize for promoting understanding between faiths as well as for his music.