Senegal's Youssou N'Dour is currently the pop mainstream's African performer of choice. He sings on Peter Gabriel's So and plays percussion on Paul Simon's Graceland, and he warmed up surprisingly receptive audiences on Gabriel's arena tour. It's easy to hear what has attracted Western pop cognoscenti to N'Dour's music. His facile voice and terse song-writing are exotic enough for trendy folk to feel that they're pushing at the boundaries of acceptable sounds, yet he's rooted firmly enough in American-derived styles that he's not too far-out to be understood.

On Nelson Mandela, the first of his albums to be released in the United States, N'Dour and his big band (twenty pieces, heavy on horn players and prodding backing vocalists) make few concessions to their new audience. Only one tune is sung in English, and the mix emphasizes rhythm over riff – much like Nigerian juju, another popular African style that has never captured a large following in America.

N'Dour's stylistic turf, somewhere between West African pop and high life, is narrow, but he deftly probes most of its nooks and crannies. On "Donkaasi Gi," subtle rhythmic and melodic shifts bridge gaps between sections while N'Dour's staccato vocal bursts ease the song across. Most of the cuts on Nelson Mandela are sweetly uptempo, with two exceptions. "Magninde" is a schmaltzy ballad, though Mamadou Dieng's drums and an avalanche of percussion are insistent enough to salvage it; at the other end, the title track, dedicated to the long-jailed South African freedom fighter, struts and stomps the singer's disgust.

N'Dour's high-life mix is not as vibrant as either South African mbaqanga or Fela Kuti's Afro-beat, and his cover of the Spinners' 1976 smash "The Rubberband Man" tries too hard to cater to Western tastes. Still, Nelson Mandela is a useful (if flawed) introduction to a promising young performer. N'Dour earned those cheers from Gabriel's crowds. Perhaps next time they'll be paying to see him. (RS 500)

JIMMY GUTERMAN