Music is a world without boundaries for Baaba Maal, one of Senegal's most celebrated musical ambassadors.

Maal brings his sound to San Francisco on Friday and to Santa Cruz on Wednesday. Opening the San Francisco show will be Cheb i Sabbah, the pioneering Algerian-born, San Francisco-based DJ, whose new dance-and-instrumental ensemble, 1002 Nights, will do music from hi just-released CD, ``La Kahena'' (Six Degrees), which blends sounds from North African, Indian and Arabian music.

It's a good pairing, especially since Maal has fortified Daande Lenol's acoustic lineup, featuring traditional instruments such as the talking drum, hoddua (four-string lute) and kora (a 21-string harp anchored by a gourd) with electric guitar, bass and keyboards for this year's tour. His show also features male dancers in traditional Senegalese costumes.

``The musicians are from all over West Africa,'' Maal says by phone from the garden of his house in Dakar, Senegal's sprawling seaside capital. ``A lot of them don't have the same language, and they play instruments that come from different ethnic groups -- from Mali, Gambia, Senegal. This is why talking about the sound of my band, you can't just say it's Senegalese. It's West African music, African music.''

Maal explains his wide-open creative stance by pointing out his upbringing in the village of Podor, on the banks of the Senegal River bordering Mauritania. As a member of the Pulaar-speaking Fula ethnic group, a historically nomadic Muslim people scattered across the continent from Senegal to Somalia, Maal absorbed a wealth of musical styles.

``When you're Fulani, your mind is open,'' Maal says. ``Your mind doesn't need to think about borders or things like that. You're open to other ethnic groups and every kind of music you hear.''

African-American music has exerted a particularly powerful pull on Maal. He has spent a good deal of time recently in the United States working on the album with the Roots. He performed with the group in New York City last month and has spent several weeks developing new material with the Roots in Philadelphia. Drawn to the group by its kinetic live performances, Maal wanted to explore ways to bring rising West African artists together with American musicians.

``It would be interesting to put these two things together to see what's going to happen, especially now that hip-hop has become very very big in Africa,'' Maal explains.

Dakar's burgeoning hip-hop scene is starting to be noticed in the States. Daara J, for instance, a leading Senegalese crew, will perform at San Francisco's Washington Square Park on July 29 at part of the North Beach Jazz Festival.

Combining rap with traditional instruments, African hip-hop artists are using the music to talk about the crises facing African society, from the scourge of HIV/AIDS and corrupt governments to ethnic strife and poverty, issues that Maal has tackled through his work with the United Nations Development Program. As Maal points out, using music as a forum to discuss a community's issues is a practice that can be traced back to Africa.

``This kind of hip-hop is going to be the future of African urban music,'' Maal says. ``The fact that people like Daara J have started to use African languages with modern beats, drums and bass, but keeping it very African -- I think this is great. The young kids can come and discover the music from the States; at the same time, they hear the lyrics in the language they're speaking at home. They hear the message the rappers want to tell to their parents, or the community or the leaders. I think this is very connected to African music in some ways.''

Click here to see footage from the 2006 tour