I was thinking recently about one of my favorite articles, David Byrne's I hate world music:
- In my experience, the use of the term world music is a way of dismissing artists or their music as irrelevant to one's own life. It's a way of relegating this "thing" into the realm of something exotic and therefore cute, weird but safe, because exotica is beautiful but irrelevant; they are, by definition, not like us. Maybe that's why I hate the term. It groups everything and anything that isn't "us" into "them." This grouping is a convenient way of not seeing a band or artist as a creative individual, albeit from a culture somewhat different from that seen on American television. It's a label for anything at all that is not sung in English or anything that doesn't fit into the Anglo-Western pop universe this year. (So Ricky Martin is allowed out of the world music ghetto — for a while, anyway. Next year, who knows? If he makes a plena record, he might have to go back to the salsa bins and the Latin mom and pop record stores.) It's a none too subtle way of reasserting the hegemony of Western pop culture. It ghettoizes most of the world's music. A bold and audacious move, White Man!
And I've read this article a fe times sine 2004, but recently I realized that when I go to the record store, I shop almost exclusively in the 'world music' section. I was recently in Arcata, CA where I went to two great records stores with a good selection, and I was in Delaware with _refugee_ after 4th of July at a great shop called Rainbow Records, and all three times I left with at least three records, none recorded in the U.S.
So, I want to know what all of your favorite non-American records are, across the entire range of genres, from Mali guitar rock to Brazilian folk, to Finnish tradition songs, to whatever you have.
Ousanousava - Zamal The name band "Ousanousava" means "wheredowego". The title "zamal" is the local name for weed. That sega-maloya type of music that come from Indian Ocean Island, mostly Reunion and Mauritius islands. That's a musical genre for total of 500k-1M inhabitants max... The lyrics are in creole, close to french. la montagn lé vèrt koulèr out ti zié / The mountain is green color of your eyes mwin mwin lé sou kouvèrt i fé bon kréché/ I'm under the trees, where it's good to sleep i fok mi lèv po alé travayé/ I must wake up to go to work sa i kas mon rèv i fos mon léfé/ That break my dream, shatter my trip alor kom sa po prolonge mon somèy/ So to keep my sleep mwin la trouv in ralonge i ranplas lo solèy/ I find a crutch to replace the sun wi solèy laktialité/ Yes, the sun has a quality sa la pa travay bondié/ It does not work, God! domoun laba lotkoté loséan/ You away in the other side of the ocean i fini pi dtié é fé koul lo san/ Keep killing and let the blood flow zot la po batay po in pé larjan/ You are fighting just for a few buck po èt gouvernèr ou bien prézidan (x2)/ To become a governor or a president a mwin isi dann monn ti kwin/ I'm here on my little land po sort in kou dann ce mond pouri/ To get out of that rotten world mwin la po tir si innti jwin/ I smoke a small blunt la ral amwin dann in paradi (x2)/ Driving me to paradise o zamal, o zamal, o zamal / O weed, o weed, o weed ti fé mal lo kèr/ You hurt the heart lo kèr monnti zézèr/ The heart of my sweet love é pourtan mwin lé fièr/ But I'm proud mwin la change linivèr/ I 'm transforming the universe la mi wa lo sièl lé roz/ I'm going where the sky is rose koulèr la lèv manzel mimoz/ Color the lips of miss Mimoz kan dési lamour i poz/ When the love is upon us ansanm avek mon kèr i esploz/ When together, my heart explode o zamal, o zamal, o zamal/ o weed, o weed, o weed ti fé mal lo kèr/ You hurt the heart lo kèr bann gouvèrnman/ The heart of the government gouvèrnman koulèr larjan/ Government color of the money é larzan koulèr lérèr/ And the money color of an error é lérèr chomin la mor (x2)/ An error on the road to death o lérèr chomin la mor/ oh an error on the road to death o zamal, o zamal, o zamal/ O weed, o weed, o weed ti fé mal lo kèr/ You hurt the heart lo kèr bann militèr/ The heart of the soldier militèr koulèr la gèr/ Soldier color of the war é la gèr koulèr lanfèr/ And the war color of hell é lanfèr frèr babilon/ The hell brother of Babylon gouvèrnay gouvèrnman/ Ship's wheel, government (a play on sound) victwar pouvwar larjan/ Victory for the power of money na sat i bwa na sat i fim/ You are not drinking, you are not smoking i batay dann chomin/ You're fighting on the path sa vréman lé pa tro sin/ That's not very holy mé na sat i vé èt pli pré jah/ I dont want that, and I get close to Jah an aralan si innti jouin/ By smoking a small blunt mwin mi parl di saj rasta/ I tell you about the wise Rastas zot i di kofré mwa ce chien/ You said: "jail that dog" madam, o madam ,o madam/ O madam, o madam, o madam out fiy dan la krwazé/ Your son at the crossroad li la po koz ek in zamalien/ He do not speak cause he is a weed smoker son palto lé déchiré/ His shirt is torn é son chové lé trésé/ His hair are braided li té sort fim innti jouin/ He was out smoking a small blunt mwin la vi sa kan mwin té sort la mès/ I saw him when I was out of the Church Mass o wi dan son chové na d'très/ Yes, there are braid in his hair ek son pantalon rapièsté/ And his pants have holes ek son palto déchiré/ His shirt is torn o madam in vré défalké/ O Madam, he's a real hobo mé dizon in bob marlé/ Like a Bob Marley oté, akout , é akout/ Please, listen, hey listen akout amwin bèlmèr/ Listen to me, stepmother ou ki trèt amwin fimèr/ You say I'm a smoker ou di ke mwin lé zamalien/ You say I'm a weed smoker ou la minm di mwin lété chomèr/ You even said I'm unemployed ké toultan mi trèn dann chomin/ That I always chill on the path ou vé pa ékout mon kozé/ You don't want to hear my explanation ou admèt pa la vérité/ You refuse to hear the truth lot fwa kan out fiy la bwar kasé/ Last time when your son was drinking hidden ant nout dé ou kisa la pléré/ We heard you were crying bèlmèr plèr pa i va pa ou/ stepmother dont cry, it does not fit you lès sa plito po zamouré/ Let that for people in love bèlmèr plèr pa i va pa ou/ stepmother stop crying it does not fit you mé i va pa ou di tou/ It does not fit you at all mwin lé parèy in lirondèl/ I resemble the swallow mwin lé kom in tourterèl/ I'm like a turledove i vien gingn la zèl/ coming with his wings mwin lé kom in payanké/ I'm like a paille-en-queue (bird endemic to the island) ester mi wa lo siel lé blé/ Where I go the sky is blue mwin lé kom in payanké/ I'm like a paille-en-queue la rozé la mouy son ké/ The dewdrop wet his tail la mèr i bouj sou lo sièl an fé/ The sea move under a burning sky mon zié lé rouj mi sort pa pléré/ My eyes are red, I'll will not cry gramoun dan son rom na inn ot léfé/ The grandfather feel the same effect with his rhum sat lé mien i dériv koté bondié/ But mine come from God solèy i tonb la rénion i dor/ The sun set, the Reunion sleep mi krèz mon tonb mwin pa fé la mor/ I dig my grave, I dont play dead in romans po monnti zézèr/ A love-story for my sweet love la pa mwin la fé mon kèr / I didnt write it, my heart did Ok...Now this place is the only place on the net where there is a song roughly translated from créole to english Lyrics:
Gee, I have A LOT to write about! First off, something that might be what you mentioned. I'm keeping off the anglo-saxon countries for now: - Accept - Blood Of The Nations (Germany) - Daft Punk - Discovery (France) - Goldfish's discography (South Africa) - Wardruna - Runaljod - Gap Var Ginnunga (Nordic folk) - MØ - No Mythologies To Follow (Denmark) - Infected Mushroom's discography (Israel) - Yellow Magic Orchestra's discography (Japan) - Soilwork - Natural Born Chaos (Sweden) - Supermax - Fly With Me (Austria) - Babymetal - Babymetal (Japan) Other than that, I like some artists from Canada: Deadmau5, Grimes and a lot of artists from England. There are some cases of artists which are from the US, but incorporate music from other countries, such as System Of A Down (Armenian music) and Juno Reactor (Spanish music and Japanese music mostly). BTW, I have 2 takeaways from your post: 1 - So record stores still exist... we don't have those in my area. When people sell CDs, it's either on bookstores or the supermarket. It's a weird feeling... though I wish there was a place like that here. I'd hang out there as much as I could. 2 -I have a few points to raise about the article: There's the assumption that all the music in the world comes from a few controlled channels. The internet has democratized the access to music. If I want to listen to Iranian music, I don't have to search far and wide for a CD and pay for it; I just go to Youtube, type "Iranian music" and I can listen to the song. There is no one limiting my access to only what the majors want me to buy (Billboard's Top 100). That doesn't happen only with "world music". People have different tastes, even for local music. People who like country might not like rock, those who like blues might not like grunge, and so on. You might listen to flamenco music and not like it. You tried it, didn't like it, end of story. Not going to be relevant to your musical world. I understand this. People want something different, but not THAT different. Babymetal's album is a good example: what you find there is a one-third mix of metal, another third of j-pop and yet another third of a lot of genres. It becomes a mishmash of hip-hop, reggae (!) and techno in some tracks. For those who didn't know j-pop, it was too much to take in all at once. So there you have it. For me, I don't do that kind of segregation. If I like the music, I don't care where it came from. P.S.; I'll get the links later. It's 3 AM right now.)So, I want to know what all of your favorite non-American records are, across the entire range of genres, from Mali guitar rock to Brazilian folk, to Finnish tradition songs, to whatever you have.
It's a none too subtle way of reasserting the hegemony of Western pop culture. It ghettoizes most of the world's music
In my experience, the use of the term world music is a way of dismissing artists or their music as irrelevant to one's own life.
This grouping is a convenient way of not seeing a band or artist as a creative individual, albeit from a culture somewhat different from that seen on American television.
The one thing I took away from this: "wait, Infected Mushroom is Israeli?!" They put on a great show too. I saw them around 2010 at a festival (was it Coachella? It might have been. I went to a few that year.) But you're also wrong on one point. Nobody can dislike Babymetal. That is the greatest band around and they have the greatest music videos. What's not to like?
Hahahaha! Yeah, I like the idea behind the whole thing, but that's me. One can say Iron Maiden is the greatest band around (there are lots of avid fans here in my country). I don't like Maiden at all, and got into a fight once because of that.But you're also wrong on one point. Nobody can dislike Babymetal. That is the greatest band around and they have the greatest music videos. What's not to like?
Interesting story about that. My boss is Bosnian and was telling me the story of how during the siege of Sarajevo, Iron Maiden was one of the only bands that came to play, where they were already loved. He said they almost worship Bruce Dickenson as an idol there now. There was a great article about it all too. I'll loop you in when I post it.
This is kind of a blind spot for me musically, but NPR does a really good job of curation when it comes to "world" music. Best Global Music 2014 Latitudes: 10 Favorite Global Music Picks From 2015 They also like to throw in a couple of "world" albums into their general year end lists.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%93lafur_Arnalds everything about iceland is perfect
Seeds of Ibis, black metal from Iraq. Occasionally rumors go around about about them and that whole circle of bands being hoaxes because they don't include real pictures of themselves in their liner notes, with the obvious response that if you were making albums like that in the places they're claiming to make them you'd want to conceal your identity too. I choose to believe.
I love hearing about how metal gets adopted around the world, and stuff like the Nairobi goth scene. Sort of a second sense of "world music", the Other likes the Sisters and Mayhem and might have more common ground with me than J. Random Teapartier.
I grew up listening to Deep Forest, as my dad was a world traveling hippy. Their song Sweet Lullaby is the quintessential "world music" music I know. Therefore I feel like you must know it. PS- I would link but I'm on mobile, but it's worth listening to if you haven't heard it. And also that album, though the name escapes me.
As a German I basically have an endless stream of music to share, but nothing really stands out spontaneously that's worth sharing here... but I'm sure I'm just not digging deep enough right now. Only one thing came right to my mind, our wedding song. It's from a band called Silbermond (and obviously very, very cheesy, so I will spare you from any lyrics :D) Another Silbermond song. I don't think you don't need to understand German to get chills from her voice: Lyrics Her voice is exceptionally good! And she's also very, very good live. I listen to very little German music, especially in German. Since I'm a native, it can reach deeper in my heart, but it has to be really, really well done for that with a lot of feeling (and mostly cheesy). Listening to YouTube stuff right now, to find something else worth sharing. Remembering German punk bands! One of my favorite songs from an authentic German punk band WIZO (Lyrics) Also, everyone who has the slightest idea of music in Germany should probably know Die Toten Hosen (Lyrics). Great good mood song! But they also have a lot of very good older stuff. This is one of their most recent songs. But basically every German knows them and they have a very good reputation. Another one of my top 2015 tracks (synth pop) (in English, though, but a German artist that was casted in a show and won the Eurovision Song Contest): Honorable mention goes to Blind Guardian.. not really representing German music, but one of my favorite German band :) If anyone wants to explore more: German ballads: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL597D2A87EA355030 This one also contains some classics: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL5219C5FC3806FEA9 Well, there are surely a looooot of good songs missing as well as a lot of mandatory classics, but I think I got quite a good collection there to give you some intro to the German music. If you have specific genre requests, I can see what I can do :)
I came across a song a while back that I posted in one of the 'music you've been into lately' threads by Maalem Mahmoud Guinia and Floating Points. Now I can't stop listening to Maalem Mahmoud Guinia. Hard to go wrong with anything by Ali Farke Toure. Talking Timbuktu is a masterpiece. And just because you can never have too much J-Rock, Sōtaisei Riron's Hi-Fi Anatomia is pretty cool.
You want Mali? You got it. This blind couple of musicians from Mali are pretty awesome. Amadou & Mariam - Ce N'est Pas Bon It is much better if you speak French but here is an English translation.
I love love love visiting it. But my friends that live there are going stir crazy. It's tough for some people to live like that. I really think it's one of the few areas of California that I can say I truly love. Was the ice cream shop also a donut shop just off the town center?
So funny story. I was writing this long-ass thing and using a remote connection to my mac back home to look at what-all I have in my iTunes and it killed my keyboard and I had to restart. So that was pretty lame. It started with the pre-amble that I'm drunk, but I'm marginally less drunk now, but still drunk. ANYWAY So I agree with you in that "world" music is awesome and also with David Byrne in that "world" music is a marginalizing name that basically says "eat your vegetables this shit is culture." It's worth pointing out that in my catalogue, "world" music has already been winnowed from "4AD" (anything like Dead Can Dance or its ilk, 4 days worth), "6 Degrees" (basically, anything world-ey but also pop-ey, 18 days worth), "enigma-like" (self-evident, 10 days worth), anything classical, anything renaissance. It also precludes anything "folk" (which I tend to hate). So "world," then, in my universe, is pretty much traditional music of non-western tradition. And I hate to say it, but when you break it down that way, it comes down to two anthologies: 1) Music of Islam. 17 not-fucking-around discs of the traditional instrumentation and vocalizations of everything Donald Trump loves to hate. (note that really, most people would slap Muslimgauze in here too because it's mostly kind of remixed traditional, but all my Muslimgauze is under "industrial" so that doesn't count either) 2) Shanka Ragamala, which I would not have known about had I not bought it at a Ravi Shankar concert (and got it signed, bitchez). This is a 3-disc set of all of Ravi Shankar's disciples playing his shit and it's tits. Disc 1 is sitar, Disc 2 is other instruments, Disc 3 is vocal and hot diggity damn is it good. I've got... some weeks in that "world" category. I can let it spin and the milk will go sour before iTunes stops. but that Music of Islam set? There's some cool shit in there. Shanka Ragamala? Well, I own a lot of Shankar, too, but that's the one I come back to. That said, I think I'm going to follow bfv around for a while.
I was incredibly lucky to see Ravi Shankar for his last performance in San Francisco. It was undoubtedly one of the best experiences I've had going to a concert and I'm sad I only got to see him once., but holy shit would I be interested in going through his disciples' music. That Music of Islam collection looks absolutely incredible though. I'm going to work my way through that over the next few weeks. bfv and I share music in PMs on occasion, so I know he's a good one to follow for pretty much anything.
A drunk me posted the below 1600+ days ago: So, I guess I would say Nusrat.
- Jeff Buckley Nusrat is actually in a weekly rotation for me. It never gets old no matter the years I've been listening to it. I've been meaning to look into more Qawwali musicians lately because it has such a profound effect on it.Nusrat is my Elvis
Is "world music" just music in other languages? Seems a bad name for a genre. Going through my list: Stromae, Ceza, Hyukoh, Leningrad, Korpiklaani, Jun Togawa, Kaizers Orchestra, Sabaton, Isengard, Rammstein, KMFDM, Oxxymiron, Takeshi Terauchi & The Bunnys, Spinvis, Umm Kulthum - all people that I thought were good enough to write down. If I could recommend one specifically, it would be Kaizers Orchestra. EDIT: didn't actually post any songs, here's some:
"World Music" is usually used as a catch-all for "non-Western", therefore "other", therefore "not as real as our music". It's a horrendous term, but conveyed the point well: Look at the wildly complete spectrum of music that's been posted in this thread! There are no shortage of genres, styles, types, cultures, histories. I think I got every continent involved here now. That's a wide variety to be in one record store bin.