After having moved back to the United States and settling in Portland, Oregon, I read in the local paper about a jazz concert benefiting a 17 year old musical prodigy who had earned a scholarship to study at the Berklee College of Music. The accompanying photo showed an itty bitty tiny little skinny girl with big hair playing an even bigger upright bass. I never went to the concert, but I told a friend about it who did. So 10 years later, when Esperanza Spalding won the Grammy for Best New Artist over Justin Beiber, I felt good knowing that I was responsible for this young woman’s success.

A musician’s musician who can be appreciated by non-musicians. Nano Stern’s music is a fusion of Folk-Rock-Jazz styles deeply rooted in Chilean folk traditions. Mil 500 Vueltas features collaborations with Jorge Drexler (Uruguay), Pedro Aznar (Argentina), Marta Gomez (Colombia), Susana Baca (Peru), and Joan Baez (USA).

This is fictional folk music from the Ukraine. Similar to the fictional Elvish languages J.R.R. Tolkien created for his Lord of the Rings mythologies, the members of DakhaBrakha (all graduates of the Kyiv National University of Culture and Arts) have deconstructed Eastern European folk music then reconstituted the memes into a sonic culture that exist only within the DakhaBrakha alternative universe.

This retro Nubian r&b/pop music migrated to the shores of Brooklyn by hiding within the soul of 8-year old refugee Alisarah who grew up to lead her band of similarly inspired artists.

“Virtually everything that sparkled in the golden age of Greece was borrowed from the Egyptians, and the Egyptians adopted their routines from the royal blacks of Nubia. We moderns overlook Nubia, we forgot how proud and fancy it was. Nubia played Professor Longhair and Big Mama Thornton to Egypt’s Elvis.” ~ Tom Robbins, “Half Asleep In Frog Pajamas”

 

It’s weird and it comes from Argentina. The music fuses various electronic dance music styles with various Argentine Amerindian music styles. Miss Bolivia is featured rapping on one of the tracks which would be wild if this Miss Bolivia was from Bolivia and had won their beauty pageant. She’s not and she didn’t, but the music is mesmerizing nevertheless.

After fleeing her home in the Wassoulou region of southern Mali, Fatouma Diawali became an accomplished actress in France then yet another internationally acclaimed Wassoulou music diva. The reason her music sounds familiar to American ears is that Mali music is believed to be the source of American blues, using the same pentatonic scales.