Youssou N’DOUR & Le Super Etoile de Dakar

Youssou N’Dour takes the stage in Abu Dhabi with his band Le Super Etoile de Dakar for a concert at The Red Theater. The Senegalese singer, songwriter and composer is a Grammy Award winner, and the evening is billed as a cross-cultural meeting of musical traditions. It is presented by The Arts Center at NYUAD and Ideas Abu Dhabi, in collaboration with the 2026 UN Water Conference and in partnership with Abu Dhabi Festival.

N’Dour and the band are closely tied to mbalax, an urban Senegalese style they helped develop and popularize. It pairs the driving rhythms of traditional sabar and tama drums with electric guitars, keyboards and bass, and draws on influences from Cuban rumba, hip-hop, jazz and soul. The result is music rooted in Senegalese tradition yet distinctly modern, which carried the sound of Dakar to listeners far beyond West Africa.

The night opens with the Lewah Maritime Ensemble from the UAE. Lewah is an Emirati heritage tradition usually performed at celebrations such as wedding processions. It came to the Arabian region through East African traders and reflects the long links between East Africa and the Arabian Peninsula. The ensemble features the mizmar, a wind instrument with a wide-open mouth, together with three drums: the Jabwah, the Shindo and the Jasser.

The Red Theater is part of The Arts Center at NYU Abu Dhabi, on the university campus on Saadiyat Island, the capital's cultural district. The island is also home to several major museums and galleries, and has beaches and a quieter, more spacious feel than the city centre. For visitors from Dubai it is a drive of roughly an hour to an hour and a half by car, so most people plan the trip as an evening out.

This is a seated theatre concert, well suited to anyone curious about African music, world music or the cultural exchange between Africa and the Gulf. Across decades, N’Dour has worked with artists including Peter Gabriel, Paul Simon and Sting, and he took part in the Human Rights Now! tour alongside Peter Gabriel, Sting, Tracy Chapman and Bruce Springsteen. His songs, often sung in Wolof, reached audiences around the world, and he built bridges between tradition and modernity, Africa and the West, without giving up his roots.