Najma (born: Najma Akhtar) has quickly risen to the upper echelon of Indian music. Although born in England, Najma has remained rooted in the pop and film music of her ancestral home. Read more »
Mozambican band Mabulu Music
The Mozambican band Mabulu symbolizes its nation’s ongoing attempt to heal the wounds of a bloody, 16-year-long civil war by uniting up-and-coming young rappers and singers with master musicians from the golden age of marrabenta, Mozambique’s classic pop sound of the ’60s and ’70s. Read more »
Music Of Makossa
In the 1950s, before Cameroon rallied around its homegrown makossa sound, the port city Douala moved to Nigerian highlife, Congolese rumba and Cuban music. Read more »
Llanero Music
Venezuela’s llanos (plains) region is an area rich in tradition, and is home to a number of mestizo music and dance genres, including the golpe and the joropo (the national dance). Read more »
Laco Tayfa
Laco Tayfa represents a new synthesis within the Turkish Roma (gypsy) tradition. Under the leadership of clarinetist Husnu Senlendirici, Laco Tayfa brings Turkish regional folk music into dialogue with contemporary world music styles, fired by a driving improvisational style. Read more »
Jalilah’s Raks Sharki
The three great centres of Raks Sharki dance are Egypt, Turkey and Lebanon. Each school has its own variations on the classic forms, in the movements and in the music. Read more »
Italian Regional Folk Music
Italy is a country where, musically at least, the regional identities are much stronger than any national feeling. There are huge regional differences, from the passionate sound of tarantella to the measured male polyphonic singing that characterizes Sardinia or the almost Celtic melodies of the north. Read more »
Fairport Convention
Few bands claim to have started a genre, but Fairport Convention has a lock as the first band to take traditional British music, electrify it and rock it up. Read more »
Abbasi Rez
Born in South Asia, removed at the age of four to Southern California, schooled at the University of Southern California and the prestigious Manhattan School of Music, and once a pilgrim to India studying under master percussionist Ustad Alla Rakha, Rez Abbasi makes music that’s a vivid synthesis of his life’s experiences. Read more »
Rita Abatzi
One of the greatest of all rembetika singers, Rita Abatzi (or Abadzi, or Abatsi) led a life with many contours that still remain a mystery to would-be biographers. Read more »
