"This," announced an emotional Hugh Masekela, "is a musically valuable night." Brixton Academy is normally a rock venue, but tonight it was packed with a mostly young, racially mixed crowd who had come to check out the wildly varied line-up from around the world, and were clearly impressed. If this is really the new Radio 3 audience, then Radio 1 should start getting worried.

This, the fifth world music award show, was the best by far, both because it was staged in a large, unseated venue rather than a concert hall, and because there was far more live music than chat or film clips. Masekela, the veteran South African star, played a key role enthusing about the music's social and even political importance.

There was everything from commercial African pop to Islamic mystical songs and east European Gypsy dance music. The show started, and ended, with two safe bets - the Algerian/French ballads of Souad Massi (Middle East and North Africa) and the Malian/French guitar-based pop of Amadou and Mariam, who took both the Africa and best album awards. The surprises came in between. There was the rapid-fire Gypsy brass work of the European winners, Romania's Fanfare Ciocarlia, followed by the hypnotic playing of the likembe thumb piano from the Congolese dance band, Konono No 1, deemed to be best newcomers, though led by the 73-year-old Mawangu Mingiedi.

Then came the gently spiritual, soulful singing of the Asia Pacific winner, the Sufi singer Sain Zahoor. Backed by the ancient stringed instrument, the ektara, along with drums and harmonium, he was clearly delighted to find an unexpected new audience in Brixton. "A mind-blower," declared Hugh Masekela, as he left the stage with his arms around the little-known Pakistani musician. And that summed up this bravely triumphant show.