7 Seconds" is a song composed by Senegalese and Swedish singer-songwriters Youssou N'Dour and Neneh Cherry with Cameron McVey and Jonathan Sharp. It was released in May 1994 by Columbia as a single performed by N'Dour and Cherry, and achieved success, reaching the number-one position in numerous countries; in France, it stayed at number one for 16 weeks, a record at the time. N'Dour featured the song on his seventh album, The Guide (Wommat) (1994), while Cherry included it on her 1996 album Man. "7 Seconds" also won the MTV Europe Music Award in the category for Best Song of 1994.[2] Its music video was directed by French director Stéphane Sednaoui. NME magazine ranked the song number 40 in their list of the 50 best songs of 1994.[3]

Recording
All instruments on the single were produced and arranged by Swedish music producer Christian Falk, who also played bass on the track.[1] It was included on Neneh Cherry's album Man (1996). The song is trilingual as N'Dour sings in three languages: French, English and the West African language Wolof. Cherry sings only in English.[4] The English chorus was actually recorded by another singer as Youssou was ill during the production of the song. It also appeared on N'Dour's 1994 album The Guide (Wommat), released shortly after the single.

The title and refrain of the song refers to the first moments of a child's life; as Cherry put it, "not knowing about the problems and violence in our world".[4] Shocked by the single's enormous commercial success, she told The Independent in an interview, "We did it as an experiment. The tune grew on its own, completely out of proportion. It was out there doing its own thing. But that is a dream when you write a song