Nothing's In Vain

After signing to Nonesuch for the world, one of Africa's most respected artists and world music's biggest names delivers his first international release for the label. In his own words, Youssou describes the album: "One of the things I set out to do was to surround my singing with traditional Senegalese instrumentation, but played in non-traditional arrangements. It was a challenge but I think we were rewarded with a lovely outcome. It was great to pull the traditional players into the studio with Habib Faye (the album's co-producer) and my usual unit (Super Etoile). To have the opportunity to invite Jean-Phillippe Rykiel (the legendary blind keyboardist) and Doudou Ndiaye Rose to help shape my music again - and working with Regis Gizavo (the Madagascar-based accordianist) and Pascal Obispo (the French pop star and songwriter) - really made me feel lucky. NOTHING'S IN VAIN is, for me, a reflective album, but in as many parts as hopeful - and even cheerful - as it is somber. Like love itself." Recorded and mixed almost entirely in N'Dour's Xippi Studios in Dakar, the traditional acoustic instruments such as the West African folk harp (kora), the Senegalese lute(xalam) and violin (riti) are featured side-by-side with Senegalese percussion (sabar) and the familiar sound of chattering guitars. With a range of instrumental color more striking than ever, bouncing polyrhythms, and soaring vocals that are among the most assured of his career, N'Dour's songs traverse a varied landscape of concerns both cultural and personal, terrestrial and ethereal, befitting a musical imagination as big as the world that has embraced his art.