BBC News | ENTERTAINMENT | Youssou N'Dour's ambassador's reception

Senegalese singer Youssou N'Dour has been appointed a goodwill ambassador by the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO). A leading exponent of world music, he has worked successfully with Neneh Cherry and Peter Gabriel.

By the BBC's Bob Chaundy

With a voice that can sear and wail one minute, and whisper gently in your ear the next, Youssou N'Dour has achieved that rare feat of successfully fusing traditional African music with western forms like jazz, rock and R & B.

His 1994 duet with Neneh Cherry, Seven Seconds, was a hit all over the world and won a Grammy nomination. He has become the first World Music international star.

Such is his status, the UN Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) has appointed him as one of its goodwill ambassadors. It is not the first time he has taken on such a role.

Along with Audrey Hepburn, he was an ambassador for UNICEF in 1993, their Year of the Child.

It was as a child that N'Dour's music career began. He was born the son of a mechanic in Senegal's capital Dakar in 1959, only months before the country's independence from France.

Exotic brand

His mother was a "griot", part of a caste of professional singers.

He built up a reputation singing at traditional functions, won a talent competition at 13, and joined the city's best band three years later.

By the age of 21 he had formed his own group, Super Etoile de Dakar, and by the 1980s they began touring Europe playing their exotic brand of music called Mbalax, a modern electronic version of Senegalese traditional music sung in the Wolof language.

His timing was perfect.

African music had become fashionable and Peter Gabriel, the former Genesis frontman and a crusader for World Music, was so impressed he invited N'Dour to duet on his album.

Youssou N'Dour
The singer owns a cassette manufacturing plant
By 1988, having appeared on Paul Simon's seminal Graceland album and at the Mandela concert at Wembley, Youssou N'Dour began touring the world with Gabriel, Sting, Bruce Springsteen and Tracy Chapman to promote Amnesty International.

By now he had taken up the cause of many social issues including apartheid in South Africa, pollution in the developing world, and anti-drugs policies.

He has toured with U2's Bono, campaigning for the cancellation of Third World debt.

Africa's positive side

He also believed that his music was a way of showing the positive side of Africa, as an antidote to the fixed western image of a continent beset by war, famine and AIDS.

Then came the hit with Neneh Cherry, Seven Seconds, which was nominated for a Grammy.

An accompanying album, The Guide, also became a million seller.

These recordings made him a lot of money, which, as the fashion for World Music began to subside, he invested in his own country.

In Senegal, where he is better known than the President, Youssou N'Dour is as much businessman as musician.

He owns a nightclub, various restaurants, a newspaper, a radio station, his own record label and a state-of-the-art recording studio where young artists can develop their careers, and where he produces several of his own albums every year, aimed at the African market.

He also owns a cassette manufacturing company.

His standing is such that when there was a problem with Dakar's electricity supply, he wrote a song about it, played it on the radio and the government quickly resolved the problem.

The track is featured on his latest album Joko, a musical journey from life in his parents' village to his collaborations with western artists including Gabriel, Sting and Fugee Wyclef Jean.

Youssou N'Dour once said that "in Africa if you make it yourself, you keep something and the rest you give back". His acceptance of his new role in the FAO is one way of giving something back.

Also honoured with the UN amabassadorial post are jazz singer Dee Dee Bridgewater, Nobel medicine prize winner Rita Levi Montalcini, actress Gina Lollobrigida and South African singer Miriam Makeba.

Chinese actress Gong Li was given the post earlier this month.


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