DAKAR, Senegal — Youssou N'Dour made a triumphal tour through Senegal's capital, holding his new Grammy Award aloft to cheers from thousands of fans. N'Dour won the Grammy for best contemporary world music album for Egypt, released after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks to show the gentler side of Islam as practiced in his west African homeland.

His prize was delivered last week. On Saturday, fans cheered as N'Dour's motorcade slowly rolled through the streets of the impoverished Medina neighborhood where he was born.

A superstar across Africa, he rose to prominence in the United States and Europe in the 1980s with his country's homegrown popular music, mbalax. The music is a mix of the traditional drumming of Senegal's Wolof ethnic group, African-rooted Cuban sounds and American soul and rock.

Combining the sounds of Cairo's Fathy Salama Orchestra with a small group of Senegalese musicians and singers, Egypt — unusually religious for N'Dour — is a homage to saints and sages of Senegal's mystical and moderate Sufi take on Islam.

While Egypt had been ready for years, it wasn't released until after the Sept. 11 attacks that N'dour says have unfairly sullied Islam's image in the West.