Born in
Dakar, Senegal, the son of a Senegalese high official and member of the
Lebou ethnic group, Diop left Senegal in the 1970s to study engineering in
Paris, but once there turned to music, joining a fellow Senegalese musician,
Umbañ U Kset, in forming the band West African Cosmos. Diop left the band in 1979 to start a solo career, and over the next decade achieved some small success, particularly in partnerships with singer
Marie-France Anglade of Black heritage, and jazz saxophonist
Yasuaki Shimizu. It was not until the early 1990s that his career began to take off, with the success of his first album, the soundtrack to the film
Hyenes (which had been directed by his brother,
Djibril Diop Mambety).
Variety described his soundtrack to 2006's
Daratt from
Chad as "outstanding". More albums followed:
No Sant in 1995,
Toxu in 1998, and the
compilation album,
Everything Is Never Quite Enough in 2004. Diop lives in Paris and writes much of his lyrics in French. Among English speaking audiences, he is probably best known for "African Dream", a single from
No Sant which narrowly missed the
Top 40 in the
UK Singles Chart,{{cite book ==Personal life==