Youssou N'Dour, a superstar at home in Senegal and in most of Africa, possesses an astonishingly strong and supple high-tenor voice, and he writes tuneful, insightful songs about his fellow West Africans' transition from isolated rural villages to cosmopolitan big cities. The Guide (Wommat) includes several calculated enticements to lure an Anglo-American audience: a bilingual duet with hip-hop star Neneh Cherry on "Seven Seconds," a guest appearance by saxophonist Branford Marsalis on "Without a Smile," and a bilingual version of Bob Dylan's "Chimes of Freedom." The Marsalis and Dylan experiments work, while the Cherry one doesn't, but they're superfluous to the main focus of the album, which is N'Dour's shift from a bandleader to a singer-songwriter with a backing band. The infectious mbalax rhythms of Senegal are still there, but they're pushed down in the mix so the focus is on N'Dour's vocals. There are some missteps, like the simple-minded cheerleading of "Tourista" and "Love One Another," but for the most part N'Dour comes across as the Stevie Wonder of West Africa. --Geoffrey Himes
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