DAKAR - With a new album out and a world tour starting this week, Senegalese icon and Grammy Award winner Youssou N'Dour shows no signs of slowing down despite his 45 years in show business.
"Let's rock," he barked to his 12-piece band Super Etoile at around an hour to midnight, before the strains of one of their last pre-tour rehearsals rang out well into the small hours.
Five years after his last album, N'Dour's latest record "Eclairer Le Monde" (Light The World) voices his commitment to human rights and gives a place of honour to traditional African instruments, a feature of his extraordinary career.
"It's been nothing but a blast!" the 65-year-old told AFP of his decades in music.
In that time he has cut dozens of gold discs and laid down tracks with the likes of Peter Gabriel, Paul Simon, Sting, Manu Dibango and Neneh Cherry.
After all that, why throw himself into another record and a gruelling transatlantic tour schedule taking in Paris, London, Munich and New York?
"Simple -- I'm still passionate!"
Hailed as the "king of Mbalax", his own urban musical melting pot of Senegalese rhythms and Latin styles, N'Dour brought his pioneering world music to international acclaim from the 1980s onwards.
His 1994 hit "Seven Seconds" with Neneh Cherry shot up the charts across the world, while his frequent collaborations saw him bridge the divide between Western and African music.
He hoped his latest album would "restore prestige" to world music.
Along with the rhythm of the djembe -- a traditional drum -- the songs feature traditional instruments such as the kora, sokou, ngoni and balafon.
All are "extraordinary in terms of their sound" to his ears.
Another goal for his new record: to serve as a "source" for younger people working in African pop music.
"Eclairer le monde" features many young musicians playing African instruments "whose knowledge has been passed down from their parents", he said.
He was "enormously touched" that the music he has made still resonates today, with younger artists sampling and covering his tunes.
"It sends me into orbit," he said.