Orchestra Baobab

Made in Dakar (World Circuit)

As with World Circuit's biggest success, the Buena Vista Social Club, Senegal's Orchestra Baobab are a legendary band long fallen out of fashion in their homeland, but reuniting to great effect on Made in Dakar. Another characteristic Baobab share with Buena Vista is their apparently effortless command of the various popular native music styles. There's a languid highlife-calypso ("Bikowa"), a jazzy ska outing ("Colette"), an Afro-cha-cha-cha song about orphans ("Jimin"), plus other hybrids.

Guest vocalist Youssou N'Dour is ably supported by the wah-wah guitar licks of band leader Barthelemy Attisso on a version of the Seventies marital celebration "Nijaay", and there are griot praise songs for past leaders of Senegal ("Papa Ndiaye") and Guinea-Bissau, whose liberator Amilcar Cabral is paid tribute to with an Afro-Cuban groove akin to the guajira rhythm popularised by "Guantanamera". Best of all are the galloping mbalax love song "Ndeleng Ndeleng" and the brittle seuruba beat of "Sibam", both guaranteed inter-continental floor-fillers.

Download this: 'Ndeleng Ndeleng', 'Sibam', 'Cabral', 'Nijaay', 'Ami Kita Bay'