Youssou N'Dour

N'Dour's star was already solidly in the world music firmament, but Set nailed it there. Each track is urgent and well-realized: the insistent title track does double duty as a great dance song and a powerful plea for international cooperation. The del! icately plucked "Medina" is delightful, while "Xale" mines a melancholy vein. One of N'Dour's best releases.

After five years of struggle he creates . . . a pop record, damn it, a pop record from Senegal and noplace but: 13 shortish songs replete with catchy intros, skillful bridges, concise solos, hooks. Americans should find them emotionally accessible with the help of a trot and musically accessible with no help at all: try "Toxiques," ecology the third-world way, or "Alboury," a list of progenitors you never heard of. As for aura, say he sounds like a citizen who knows exactly what he wants and exactly how to get it. Say occasionally the tama is too hectic and the horns are too hackneyed. Say everything is beautiful anyway. That exotic enough for you? (Grade - A-)