Tonight's World Music Celebration, undoubtedly a highlight of the Proms season, is a timely piece of programming from new Proms director Roger Wright.

A showcase for the winners of this year's seventh Radio 3 Awards for World Music - who include Cape Verde's breezy-voiced Mayra Andrade and the Malian master Bassekou Kouyate - it comes at a time when interest in world music is at a peak.

The internet has built bridges, as have regular festival performances by bands such as the supercool Touareg group Tinariwen. We can also thank a slew of global pop stars, such as Gogol Bordello's Ukranian-born Eugene Hutz, Brazil's electro sextet CSS, or even the preppy New York band Vampire Weekend, whose guitar lines set African high-life music in a hipster context.

While the term "world music" can encompass anything from Cambodian psychedelia to Swiss alpenhorns, what its devotees are really after is that secret chord, the missing link, the sound they have never quite heard before - something that, after a while, English and American sounds cease to offer. And once you've discovered, say, the ramshackle delights of early Seventies Nigerian funk, it seems absurd to go back to a diet of potato pop.

Mayra Andrade, tonight's most glamorous draw, is already making her way onto discerning playlists. A major export for Cape Verde, a small archipelago off the west coast of Africa, she presents a unique mix of Verdean, French and Portuguese influences that's at once a delicious, jazzy confection and a woozily disconcerting trip (check out the drunken-sounding guitars of her song Tunuca). She won best newcomer award for her heady debut album, Navega.

Bassekou Kouyate, who plays a form of the blues on a sort of African desert lute called the ngoni, was winner of African artist of the year as well as album of the year for the remarkably funky Segu Blue. Live, his Ngoni Quartet are a hypnotic, charismatic presence.

Gambia's Juldeh Camara and Britain's Justin Adams - winners of the Culture Crossing award - trace a similar blues line back to Africa taking a totally different route, while China's Sa Ding Ding, by way of total contrast, blends contemporary Western beats with ancient Chinese melodies. The Spaniard Son de la Frontera completesthe line-up with his dextrous-flamenco guitar-playing. As with all Proms, you can turn up an hour before kick-off and get cheap tickets for the arena or the gallery. A whole new world for a fiver sounds like a bit of a bargain to me.

• Tonight, 7pm. Information: 0845 401 5040; www.bbc.co.uk/proms