Youssou Ndour’s journey to Kingston began with the music pulsing from the Dakar market stalls of his childhood. It began during long hours of listening to reggae LPs from his uncle’s record store. It continued decades later, long after Ndour became one of the world’s best known and best loved African singers, as circumstances conspired and he found himself at Tuff Gong studios, walking in Bob Marley’s footsteps and jamming with Marley’s musical friends.

Dakar-Kingston (Emarcy Records; June 7, 2011) maps this road, turning Ndour classics and several new originals into reggae anthems, reflecting reggae’s deep impact on West African music and culture. Guided by veteran reggae producer and former Marley collaborator Tyrone Downie, Ndour finds the sunny and urgent, the laid-back and the hard-grooving sides of Jamaican music, supported by a multigenerational crew of Jamaican and African reggae voices.

Ndour, a pioneering performer whose strikingly expressive voice transformed both the mbalax music of his native Senegal and Western pop, is an experienced traveler. He has effortlessly climbed charts in North America and Europe thanks to duets with Peter Gabriel, Neneh Cherry, and Sting. He has traced the roots of his griot (traditional oral historian) heritage, and explored his Muslim faith and its sonic impact by collaborating with Egyptian musicians, winning a Grammy® for his efforts.

(more…)