Youssou N’Dour: Éclairer Le Monde album review — a shining return to form - Ethiopia Observer

Youssou N’Dour: Éclairer Le Monde album review — a shining return to form - Ethiopia Observer

In record producer Joe Boyd’s magisterial book And the Roots of Rhythm Remain, a history of World Music as an industry and Boyd’s own not-inconsiderable part in it, he recalls one of Youssou N’Dour’s band members telling him that “7 Seconds” — N’Dour’s hit duet with Neneh Cherry — was “the worst catastrophe ever to happen to Senegalese music”. His reasoning was that its success pushed the Dakar superstar into pursuing a shinier, more westernised…