I dont know a better name for it but I have just started getting into a lot of different music from around the world and I love it. Is anyone else into different music from around the world?

Currently I am listening to:
Pape & Cheikh - "Mariama" - from Senegal
Rossy - "Island of Ghosts" - from Madagascar
Geoffrey Oryema - "Night to Night" - from Uganda
Adrien Sherwood - "Never Trust a Hippy" - I think from the West Indies but the music is Jamaican and Indian influence. This album is a "must have".

Anyone else know any good stuff to take a listen to?

Hmmm, this thread's quiet. Are people's musical tastes limited only to western popular music?

I love music from all the world, Fela Kuti, Ali Farka Toure and Franco, from Africa, Simon Shaheen from the Arab world, etc.

Adrian Sherwood's African Head Charge band is worth checking out. There's a reasonably priced compilation of their stuff out now. They're wierd, but cool. Kind of roots reggae meets crazed African sounds.

As for Carribean music, Bob Marley and the other Wailers (Peter Tosh, Bunny Wailer, and the Barrett brothers, especially) are up there with any American musical gods, also Burning Spear, Lee 'Scratch' Perry and others.

The thing with Marley is that today, with him being gone, he is easily 'controlled' and his image 'manipulated', and it's easy to forget just how subversive and anti-western his message sometimes was. I'm sure he would never have approved of his songs being used in commercials, as they have been recently.

There's a whole world of music out there, people (world music, or whatever you want to call it). Find it and enjoy it!

Any of y'all ever heard of Angelique Kidjo? She's an African pop singer who's been around for about 10 years now I think. She sings in 3 different African languages...they're really beautiful. She's really good, a great singer and she puts together really good music. Her last album "BlackIvorySoul" she did a duet with Dave Matthews.

I also love traditional Japanese koto music. If anyone knows where I could hook up with some sheet music for some of this kind of stuff I'd B greatly indebted 2 U.

How about Deep Forest?

I love their music. Not exactly what you're talking about I think, as their music is not indiginous to one country or region, but they have explored music from all around the world. Two french guys, Eric Mouquet and Michel Sanchez.

Their albums are :

Deep Forest - mainly African theme, includes hymns and chants from pygmy tribes. This one won an award from UNICEF, and I recommend it for anyone - beautiful music that you'll never get tired of. Two versions are available : Standard version, and World Mix which includes additional mixes.

Boheme - Eastern Europe, Balkans
Comparsa - South America
Pacifique - pacific rim
Music Detected - a more commercial effort, not as focused as their previous work, and slightly naff.

One song from each of the first 3 albums can be downloaded from their website (which is now seriously out of date!) :
http://www.sonymusic.fr/d.../home.html

Anyone who knows of Deep Forest, well you know what I'm talking about, anyone who doesn't, check them out! Some of the most moving and beautiful music made in recent years.

I think Miles might be on to something - perhaps people's tastes are limited (mainly) to western music, although I'd say it's likely that people buy western music because that's all they are exposed to. I know I'm more likely to buy western music simply because I'll buy something I've heard and like rather than something I probably haven't heard. I know I have dithered on many occasions in the World Music section and ended up not buying stuff because I felt the price was too much to pay for something completely unknown. Of course, I would never have really considered Bob Marley to be World Music, but that's probably just because his music has been commercialised for years.

I'd love to be able to make some more recommendations, but there ya go.

African Head Charge sounds interesting - I'm going to look out for them. Thanks for the recommendations.

[This message was edited Fri Dec 5 3:05:13 PST 2003 by recorddealer]

Miles said:

wow. im glad you bumped this up.

Adrien Sherwood is one of the best I have found. The roots reggae meets african (like you said) is simply amazing. For straight up roots reggae, i mentioned in another thread Misty in Roots. I find them just as good as Bob Marley, Bunny Wailer, Peter Tosh or Lee Perry. They have a newer album that is fantastic, their first album in 10 years, called "Roots Controller". It is excellent.

Ghorwane is another one of my favorites from Mozambique. Their album "Majurugenta" was recorded in one take. That is amazing when you listen. Great african music.

Ive just started listening to a wider variety of world music. Havent really ever taken the time to find out more and more good musicians. but what i have found I love. i am starting to give up on typical western music and strictly listen to reggae/carribean and african influenced. it sure makes for a more relaxing evening though!

If you like Latin music...

...I found a CD in one of those "world artisan" stores in the mall (where they sell wooden statues and windchimes and other crap made by third-world laborers) that is really good. It's by a label called "Putumayo World Music" and the CD is called "Putumayo Presents CUBA".
It's got some very authentic Cuban Rhumba.
There's a tune by Ibrahim Ferrer (of the Buenavista Social Club) that is awesome, and one by a group called Todos Estrellas called "El Reloj de Pastora" which (if you understand Spanish) will have you rolling with it's subtly dirty double-entendre lyrics.
In any case, it's a great CD to have if you want to experience authentic Cuban music...before Fidel Castro croaks, and American radio overtakes the island, and Emilio Estefan becomes the godfather of Cuban music, and little Cuban-Britney-wannabes take over.

There is a group called Baka Beyond ~ I have only heard a couple of tracks but they were wonderful ~ my friend sent them to me and he said that it was Baka Pygmies original cultural music. One of the songs features them making incredible drum beats on the surfave of a lake with their hands ~ quite intriguing.

another one is Oumou Sangare'. It was difficult to know whether this was a male or female but after a bit of research on allmusicguide.com I discovered she is a woman. Very minimal and beautiful ~ huge emotion in her voice.

chemmie said:

are you familiar with puntamayo? its a label that releases world mucis comps. they have some great artists on there. i started out with a multi-country sampler and now i'm hooked. the africa one is my favorite.

Are you kidding? Oumou is a huge star all over the world. She is the voice of West Africa, the Whitney Houston of Mali.

recorddealer said:

lol. the fact that you have to actually say she is 'the whitney houston of mali' should hip you to the fact that she's not known the world over. i mean, nobody says 'the whitney houston of america'...she's just whitney houston.

That's just because I was guessing that people in here (mostly americans right?) wouldn't have a clue. Nevermind Oumou has a wonderful voice and if you only listen to your weekly U.S. top 10 you are missing out.

recorddealer said:

i know that's right!

bratchildsfriend said:

its all about Amazon.com man!

you can listen to most of this stuff on Amazon and they often give suggestions to other stuff. Then you can hear clips of that too.
That is how I found out about most of this along with being a big Peter Gabriel fan and following the Real World Records label.
Amazon is my oasis on the net. Good prices, especially with the new marketplace feature, and the best selection you can find.

damn, they should pay me for advertisement.

I like world music, especially arabic...(rai)
Artists like Cheb Mami, Cheb Khaled and Cheb Hasni have many great songs, as well as Samira Said and Amr Diab.

Must be checked out!

bratchildsfriend said:

No problem at all, I'm actually impressed by your honesty.
I have followed Oumou's career through african media mostly, to catch up with her latest projects and her association.

these links are worth checking out:
http://www.concertedeffor...s_sang.asp

http://www.leopardmannen....sp?lang=gb

recorddealer said:

Then how do you explain this?

No need to be offensive.

I would also add to my favorate so-called 'world music' artists a Spanish band called Radio Tarifa whose music blends medieval Arab and Spanish music (this is more fun and interesting than it might sound at first!) in highly soulful and danceable ways.

Also, I like Sheila Chandra, an absolutely gorgeous singer (in voice, I mean) whose sounds range from Indian to Celtic, at times in the same song.

Then there's Tabla Beat Science who are basically bassist/ producer/ composer Bill Laswell and tabla drummer Zakir Hussain (from John Mclaughlin's Shakti group) with a bunch of other Indian musicians, playing ambient drum and bass influenced music with strong northern Indian flavas. This sounds wierd but is one of the best 'world fusion' things I've heard in a while.

I'm enjoying this thread, and picking up new things from my fellow orgers. Imagine if Prince listened to some of this stuff and picked up a few things? He's already brought the jazz in more, maybe medieval Afro-Indian-Ambient-Drum and Bass Reggae could be his next big thang ...

recorddealer said:

Thank you ~ I'll check these out. I was wondering, as your name is recorddealer, whether you sell music.

Thank you to whoever cleaned this thread up.

Is Afro-cuban jazz considered World Music?

What about some Peter Gabriel?

What the hell is world music anyway?

From this thread it looks like it's music that just isn't popular in the US. If that's the case, I have some fav's from an Arabic nature but can anybody clarify what specifically it is?

Slave2daGroove said:

I consider Peter Gabriel to be at the forefront of the "world music" scene because of the amount of support he lends to bands from around the world. His record lable RealWorld is home to a few of the artists mentioned in this thread. And his album "Passion" is a fantastic adventure in music from the world.

Slave2daGroove said:

I always thought world music was music from other parts of the world, that is indigenous to that country.

Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan is the bomb.

So is Jai Uttal. http://www.jaiuttal.com/

I'll check my cds for other artists when I get home...

Piazolla is fricken GREAT!



www.piazolla.org

Miles said:

My boyfriend just bought a Fela Kuti box set. HOT!

www.felakuti.net

Miles said:

Sheila Chandra!



Oooh, I LOVE Tabla! This sounds right up my alley.

Anyone heard of Bally Sagoo? He's great too. He uses authentic East Indian vocals on his tracks, not samples and puts mad beats to it all. I dig him a LOT. I only have one of his cds and I want to get some more.

http://www.ishqrecords.com/videos.htm Check out the videos for Dil Cheez and Tum Bin Jiya.