Youssou N'Dour

Youssou N’Dour wears his mantle as Afropop superstar and international music icon lightly, but throughout his career the 48-year-old Senegalese singer with the soaring voice has proven a bellwether of global pop tendencies.

He broke out in the 1980s behind mbalax—a pop sound built from his country’s intricate vocal and instrumental traditions—at a time that also saw the rise of soukous, makossa, Afrobeat and other styles born of similar ferment. He worked with mavens like Peter Gabriel, who helped launch world-music studios and labels, and he was present for the descent into overproduced global fusion; his 1994 duet “7 Seconds” with Neneh Cherry remains one of that era’s more listenable vestiges.

But post-9/11 global tension has proven a creative spur for N’Dour, a devout Muslim and an activist for causes including girls’ education and the fight against malaria. He threw out the playbook with 2004’s Egypt, an astonishing album that bridged devotional and pop sensibilities while exploring Senegal’s Islamic legacy. On his latest, Rokku Mi Rokka, he reverts to a standard song-driven format, but continues his cultural investigation.

“Egypt was a parenthesis, something exceptional,” N’Dour says on the phone from Dakar. “But you know, when you go somewhere, it ends up taking you someplace else.”

Rokku Mi Rokka—which translates to “Give and Take”—draws on Senegal’s arid North, where N’Dour detects the deep roots of reggae and the blues. “The music resembles the villages going toward the desert,” he says. “It’s a beautiful region, but also harsh. There is something difficult and powerful about it that becomes reflected in the music.”

Working with local and Malian musicians in addition to his Super Etoile band, N’Dour plays an open, acoustic style that gives his voice ample room to roam. The songs contain social commentary and cultural homage, from the joyous “4-4-44,” which honors Senegalese independence to “Baay Faal,” which celebrates a sect of dreadlocked mystics in whose ideas N’Dour says he recognizes himself.

Amid this fare, the final track, “Wake Up (It’s Africa Calling)” seems an odd note, with earnest French and English lyrics and a perfunctory rap from Cherry. But N’Dour says the song aims to counter enduring stereotypes. “It’s the message of young Africans who are active and aware,” he says. “It’s not just forests and poverty and AIDS. Africa is present, Africa is online.”