The great Senegalese singer Baaba Maal plays a key part in the birth of my daughter Lily. No, not like that…

One summer night in 1992, with our first baby already two weeks overdue, we went to see him perform at the Jazz Cafe in Camden.

I found us a table upstairs where a nine-and-a-half month pregnant woman might be more comfortable and we sat there awaiting the start of the show.

Instead of arriving onstage from the wings, Baaba Maal unexpectedly entered the room leading a procession of drummers snaking slowly around the upstairs balcony.

They danced right past our table and the thunderous sound of their bongo and conga drums at such close quarters was a physical experience.

Those rhythms shook the very foundations of he building – and everybody in it. Including our unborn baby.

Anyway, it was a great show, during which he may or may not have played this song, which came out two years later in 1994.

But a couple of hours after we got home, my wife’s waters broke and we set off for Homerton Hospital where our lives would change for ever when, at 1.15 the next day, a small pink baby was born.

So this song is for Lily.