New York Public Radio station WNYC's Soundcheck staff have released their Picks of the Week. The show's executive producer, Gisele Regatao, points to Youssou N'Dour's Rokku Mi Rokka (Give and Take), and host John Schaefer names David Byrne's The Knee Plays among the "stand-out new albums" worth checking out now.

On New York Times music critic Jon Pareles's list of events to look out for this week are concerts by Caetano Veloso and Youssou N'Dour, two "musicians who qualify as full-fledged national heroes." While they come from different continents, both "accepted the same mission: to make contemporary pop that sounds both local and global, and highly individual." And each will perform at New York's Nokia Theatre.

When Youssou N'Dour performed in upstate New York in 1994, he did so before a crowd of more than 150,000 at Woodstock ’94. This Sunday night, he’ll return to the region to play before a slightly more intimate, though likely no less enthusiastic crowd, at the Kingston, NY, Ulster Performing Arts Center. But as the town’s Daily Freeman reports, at least a few reminders of the spirit and sound of the original event at Yasgur's Farm in 1969 remain. The Washington Post recognizes Youssou as “the greatest contemporary singer from Senegal and possibly all of Africa," and of his new album, Rokku Mi Rokka (Give and Take): “the album's sound is intricate, indigenous and characteristically exhilarating.”

Last month, the San Francisco Jazz Festival was the site of the world premiere of Glenn Kotche's Anomaly, which the composer performed together with Kronos Quartet. This month, two more Nonesuch artists join the festival's 25th anniversary celebration, when Caetano Veloso performs at the Nob Hill Masonic Center this Saturday, November 17, and Youssou N'Dour hits the stage for the festival's closing night, Friday, November 30.

Philadelphia magazine is giving away tickets to see Youssou N'Dour in concert next Tuesday, November 20, for his debut appearance at the city's Kimmel Center. 

Last night, at a special event at New York's Lincoln Center, Youssou N'Dour was named among the 2008–09 mentor artists in the Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative. The mentors, from five countries and six different fields in the arts, also include director Martin Scorsese and actress Kate Valk from the US, German artist Rebecca Horn, Nigerian writer Wole Soyinka, and Czech choreographer Jiri Kylian.

In this weekend's Telegraph (UK), Youssou N'Dour speaks with writer Peter Culshaw about the challenges of trying to bridge the sometimes conflicting musical tastes of the West, which often expects music from Africa to be more traditional, and those of his fellow countrymen, who tend to prefer a more modern sound. This can be seen in the title of his new record, Rokku Mi Rokka (Give and Take). Youssou also has kind words for his experience at Nonesuch. Writes Culshaw: "On Nonesuch, he feels that he is competing with fellow label artists such as the composer John Adams or the jazz guitarist Pat Metheny, artists who have 'integrity and respect,' like the label." 

Youssou N'Dour's Rokku Mi Rokka (Give and Take) has earned "wild applause"—the highest rating—from the San Francisco Chronicle. The review  praises its predecessor, the Grammy-winning Egypt, as "a masterpiece in a career filled with them," then names the new album "an immediate Grammy contender in its own right." "Crackling with rhythm and joy," says the Chronicle, "this is world music that truly can be heard, loved and understood around the globe."

Youssou N'Dour debuted on the top of the iTunes UK World Music Album Chart today with the release of his new album, Rokku Mi Rokka (Give and Take). The British press has been singing the record's praises, with the Financial Times, BBC Music magazine, and the Guardian all giving it highest marks. Fans in the UK had a chance to hear tracks from Rokku Mi Rokka all day on BBC 6, which made it the featured Album of the Day.

On Tuesday, November 6, the Austin Film Society will present a screening of Youssou N'Dour: Return to Gorée. The 2006 documentary, directed by Pierre-Yves Borgeaud, follows N'Dour and his band through Europe to a powerful performance at Gorée, the island off the coast of Senegal's capital that, for centuries, served as the final departure point for newly enslaved Africans. The screening is part of the Film Society's monthlong series Torn from the Motherland: Films from the African Diaspora, designed "to appreciate Pan-Africanist creativity under the cold realities of slavery, imperialism, colonization and neo-colonialism." 

Youssou N'Dour's latest album, Rokku Mi Rokka (Give and Take), hits stores tomorrow, and it's already earning rave reviews. Earlier this month, on NPR's All Songs Considered, Rolling Stone contributing editor Robert Christgau called Youssou and Super Étoile "the best band in the world." It seems the press in London would agree: The Financial Times, BBC Music magazine, and the Guardian's Observer Music Monthly all give the new album their highest rating, five stars, with the Observer calling it "extraordinary" and "a new pinnacle in Youssou's career." In conjunction with the record's release, Nonesuch.com unveils a new mini-site featuring video interviews with Youssou and musicologist Lucy Duran, plus songs from the new album. Read excerpts from the interview transcript here.

Canada's CBC News reports that South African police have arrested five men linked to the shooting death last Thursday of reggae star Lucky Dube. Late last week, Youssou N'Dour urged South African leaders to use Dube's death as a wake-up call to address that nation's high incidence of violent crime.