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Any star is an unknowable quantity, one from whom we expect distance but crave intimacy -- it’s the paradox that drives the star-making industry. With our pop stars, we literally can’t get enough: we flock to flawed films, hungry for a glimpse of the “true” person behind the persona. We’ve watched Bette Midler channel Janis Joplin (sort of) in “The Rose,” Elvis remain himself even when he should be acting (just about any film), U2’s self-aggrandizing at the dawn of its career in “Rattle and Hum,” Madonna playing herself in both fiction (“Desperately Seeking Susan”) and documentary (“Truth or Dare”). The latest in line? Michael Jackson, who’s drawn a flood of viewers to the posthumously released rehearsal doc “This Is It,” which topped the box office last weekend.

SoundTreks: A regular feature on the music the other 97 percent of the globe is listening to.

Two very exciting new releases for world nerds (like yours truly) came out this week: the second album from Brazilian neo-bossa ingenue CeU and a fabulous new greatest-hits collection from the self-proclaimed (and rightfully so) Magic Couple, Mali's blind husband-and-wife duo Amadou & Mariam. These two albums might seem disparate, coming from far corners of the globe and encompassing vastly different styles. But I'm willing to put money on the theory that they share a fan base -- one that is enamored of elegant, evocative (and sometimes pensive) vocals, impeccably graceful songwriting and an aesthetic that intertwines respect for tradition with a penchant for organic innovation. Read reviews of both albums by our own Nick Dedina after the jump.

Just to make things interesting, however, we're also going to throw a few more items into this week's column in the form of three albums that really are pretty distinct: the Yoshida Brothers' new best-of album, the sophomore effort  of Mexican cumbia boy band Los Super Reyes, and the first stateside release of Balkan brass band rock star Goran Bregovic. Together, these five albums help to demonstrate the exciting, often exhilarating ground a "SoundTrek" through the world of world music can cover.

SoundTreks: A regular feature on the music the other 97 percent of the globe is listening to.

So many fabulous albums have come out in the last few weeks that we decided to dispense with the thematic format on this week's SoundTreks and focus instead on surveying a hodgepodge of new releases. Sound good? Well, of course it does -- just listen to the playlist of material discussed in this post!

SoundTreks: A regular feature on the music the other 97 percent of the globe is listening to.

"A long-oppressed people historically forced into ghettos rhyme about the sometimes violent conflict they are embroiled in over issues of ethnicity, economics, or turf." Sound familiar? Well, contrary to what it might sound like, this is something I wrote in my review of Celebrate Hip-Hop, a 2004 compilation of Jewish hip-hop from around the globe. With the glaring exception of the Beastie Boys, "Jewish hip-hop" sure seems like an oxymoron in the American public imagination. Add a globally minded touch of world music to that combo and things get even wackier.

Hip-hop is a powerful medium, however -- one that's become known for its ability to zigzag across the globe and speak to the socio-political concerns and aesthetic needs of activist-musicians in many places and cultures. In the last several years, Jewish emcees and producers from around the world have been making some important contributions to the genre. This week's SoundTreks explores several very distinct albums that demonstrate the breadth and depth of the Jewish hip-hop niche.

It's not easy to follow in Dad's footsteps when Dad is considered one of the greatest musicians of the 20th century. But Vieux Farka Toure, son of Malian desert blues pioneer Ali Farka Toure, isn't one to shy away from a challenge. Actually, scratch that: he absolutely is. The elder Toure wanted his son to join the army, and Vieux briefly complied (unwillingly). But he nurtured a secret love affair with music, first learning percussion and then finally picking up the guitar, his father's instrument. Once he started on the guitar, it was all over. Vieux went against his father's wishes, giving up the military for music and forging a mentor relationship with close family friend (and master kora player) Toumani Diabate.

His father finally came around -- with intervention from Diabate -- and played on a few tracks on Vieux Farka Toure's self-titled 2007 debut, just before Ali's death. Though the younger Toure is still finding his feet as a performer and singer, he's grown increasingly comfortable in the spotlight -- and it helps that he really has the musical goods to warrant the recognition he's getting. Even Diabate was surprised by the beauty of Toure's playing on the demos for his debut album -- and he's been championing the kid for years.

Toure's second album, Fondo, was released earlier this week on Six Degrees Records, and it's remarkable: neither a carbon copy of his father's style nor an over-eager attempt to improve on tradition -- just a thoughtful, beautifully played, adventurous release. The guitarist generously took some time out of his touring schedule to answer our questions over e-mail. Not every musician can express himself well in words, but I was bowled over by Toure's friendly, openhearted responses -- and the thoughtfulness that runs through both the album and this interview. Meet desert blues' next great ambassador!

SoundTreks: A regular feature on the music the other 97 percent of the globe is listening to.

The last few weeks have seen some great moments as well as some sad moments in world music. First things first. R.I.P. to Coumba Sidibe, the great Mali-born singer who pioneered the Wassoulou sound and who died last week at her home in the Bronx. While Sidibe never gained an international following on the scale of that of Oumou Sangare (who was once a backup singer for her), she was a trail-blazing musician who began making music at a time when women were a rare commodity in Mali's music industry. She passionately devoted herself to adapting the traditional music of her Fulani heritage into the Wassoulou sound, as well as composing and recording her own work. She was just a wonderful singer. I don't think anybody is quite sure when she was born, but she died May 9, 2009.

On a happier note, Federico Aubele, the tango-tronica hero who enjoyed so much crossover success with Gran Hotel Buenos Aires, is back with another album. It's called Amatoria, named for Ovid's Latin tract on how to pick up (and retain) chicks, the Ars Amatoria. So yes, if you think Aubele might be trying to sex you (or somebody) up, you're right. It's also a further departure sonically for Aubele, who seems to have grown dissatisfied with his electronic meddling with tango; this is his second album that's seen him moving toward a nearly acoustic sound. He sings on every track, accompanied by guests like Miho Hatori (Cibo Matto) and Sabina Sciubba (Brazilian Girls), but I found that after about five songs everything sounded more or less the same. Aubele's got a great sensual growl going, but, as my dad might say, writing a good melody is hard work. Lovely as the album is, Aubele's still got a ways to go in that department.

On the other hand, Marcio Local's new album -- his first to release in the States as far as I know -- has no problem with melodies: he just lifted them wholesale from Jorge Ben. But ... okay. If you're going to steal, you might as well steal from one of the greatest artists of the twentieth century. And he didn't exactly steal the melodies -- just the feel. Local's gruff-voiced Brazilian funk had steam pouring out of my headphones, and it also had me dreaming, weirdly, of beach volleyball. What do I care for beach volleyball? Nothing. But such is the power of Local's evocative sound: it makes you want to play beach volleyball even if you look terrible in a thong and can't walk two feet without using an inhaler. And it came out on Luaka Bop, David Byrne's label, if that holds any weight for Talking Heads fans out there.

Finally, if you haven't read it yet, check out Rachel Devitt's take on Afterquake, a collaboration between Abigail Washburn (noted banjo player and Bela Fleck's girlfriend!) and the Shanghai Restoration Project. The album is devoted to exploring life after last year's devastating earthquake in Sichuan province, China. Have a listen to the album, too; it's for a good cause.
 

You stumble over it in the street. You hear it blaring from cassette stands (yes, cassettes) in the Jemaa el Fna. You discover that jazz musicians all want to make fusion with it ... I'm talking, of course, about Gnawa music, the underground sound of Morocco.

Officially, Morocco's national music is classical Andalusian, the stately (and undeniably magnificent) sound fashioned back when the Moors were living it up in Spain. But you don't even have to scratch the surface of that veneer to hear it crumble. Staying in the Moroccan coastal town of Essaouira, home to the annual Gnawa music festival, I found Gnawa music spilling from the most unexpected places. At the tiny riad in the old city, our desk clerk, Nabil -- an adorably hip young man who was rocking out to Louis Prima the first time I met him -- confessed that his main ambition in life was to fuse Gnawa and electronica. (That night he proceeded to break out a guembri and sing us a few songs in an old-man voice that seemed at odds with his lithe, Brooklyn-esque presence.) Later, when I wandered into a local music shop and asked about hip-hop, the clerk threw a disc in the deck. What did I hear? Gnawa music, followed by some seriously fresh-sounding flows in Berber and Arabic.

Gnawa and hip-hop, Gnawa and jazz, Gnawa and peanut butter -- the music has become Morocco's lingua franca, a key that seems to unlock musicians' creativity no matter the genre. It's Morocco's blues music, born of slavery and strife, oppression and displacement -- the sound that sub-Saharan slaves brought with them as they made the journey through Arab slave markets to Morocco, starting back in the 11th century.

Perhaps you're wondering what Gnawa music and peanut butter sound like? Listen to the playlist below to find out. Or to keep reading about this cousin to the American blues, click the link below the playlist.

SoundTreks: A regular feature on the music the other 97 percent of the globe is listening to

Many groups can claim to have influenced the revival and flowering of Irish traditional music, but the Dubliners were, in so many ways, the first. This was the group that went to the country and resurrected dying songs -- they copped their major hit, "Seven Drunken Nights," from a little-known sean nos singer named Joe Heaney -- and brought live music (the now indispensible "sessions," or seisiuns) back to bars in Ireland at a time when it was nearly nonexistent.

In this day and age -- and in this country -- it's hard to understand just how revolutionary the group was, and just how repressed Irish culture had been for centuries. The English in Ireland tried out tactics they later used around the world in their colonial endeavors: denying "natives" the right to use their own language in 1387, banning "Irish clothes" and banishing the Irish from walled towns, clearing them off their land, etc . Phrases like "beyond the pale" originated in Ireland, describing the zone outside the "civilized" English-controlled towns. That legacy, coupled with the famine of 1848 and waves of migration and economic stagnation, had left the country decimated, clenching a robust and punitive Catholicism in one fist and a bottle of booze in the other. We've all read the stories: Frank McCourt's litany of hardships in Angela's Ashes, the violence and hard-drinking in books like Roddy Doyle's Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha or The Woman Who Walked Into Doors, or films like The Magdalene Sisters.

Indian film star Shahrukh Khan.

Slumdog. It seemed like everybody in the country fell in love with that film, and the Academy fell over itself agreeing. Eight Oscars! Danny Boyle was the driving force behind it, and its reckless pace was hallmark Boyle (Trainspotting). But the things we love about Slumdog are, at heart, also classic tropes of Mumbai's sprawling film industry, better known as Bollywood. When you think Bollywood, think big emotions, doomed romance, high drama -- and dance scenes, baby, dance scenes. Plot points matter less than taking the viewer for an extravagant, emotional rollercoaster ride. For years mocked as a niche genre (despite being by far the world's biggest film industry), Bollywood is beginning to get its due around the globe -- particularly in these recession-inundated times, when people find themselves craving escapism and sweeping emotion simultaneously. But for Bollywood neophytes, where to start?

A member of the National South Korean folk ensemble plays the kayagum, arguably Korea's most famous instrument.

SoundTreks: A regular feature on the music the other 97 percent of the globe is listening to.

Like South Korea itself, which is all too often overlooked by backpackers and travelers on the Asia circuit, South Korean music is relatively unknown outside Korea. Which is a real shame, because the country's soundscape is a fascinating mix that encompasses everything from revered traditions stretching back thousands of years to blazingly ephemeral pop songs that echo across the wide expanses of always-changing, always-moving Seoul at any time, day or night. In short, it is not to be missed.

Filipino folk musician Grace Nono.

SoundTreks: A regular feature on the music the other 97 percent of the globe is listening to.

The Philippines is all too often epically ignored by the world music industry. The island nation's snubbing is in large part a result of twin colonial legacies. First, there's the imperialist notion (perpetuated by more than 400 years of Spanish, American and Japanese colonialists) that the Philippines has "no culture" (whatever that means). Second, there's the truth: the more than 7,000 islands that make up the Philippine archipelago are actually host to more than 180 ethnic and language groups. These groups were lumped together by colonizers who typically paid little attention to the myriad distinctive precolonial cultures or the creative ways Filipinos have negotiated outside influences.

Enter Grace Nono -- musician, composer, producer, label owner, activist and champion of diverse Filipino cultural practices, including music, art, theater, and healing and spiritual traditions. Nono got her start as a much-heralded solo artist, carving a niche for herself in the Philippines' alt-rock scene with her neo-folk-pop in the 1990s. Nono's music is dizzyingly wide-ranging and often just slightly avant-garde, but the constant is her artistic vision: the combination of indigenous folk melodies and rhythms with global pop aesthetics. Since her critically lauded debut, Tao Music, in 1992, Nono's solo output has slowed down as she has diverted her focus to other projects. Her two most recent albums, however, continue to showcase her overlapping visions of innovation and tradition.

Philadelphia-based DJ, songwriter and producer Diplo.

SoundTreks: A regular feature on the music the other 97 percent of the globe is listening to.

One month into 2009 and we're already staggering under the great releases. Some of them have been bubbling in Europe for awhile: Rokia Traore's bird-bone delicate Tchamantche, Mariza's melancholic but slightly more pop-oriented Terra (check out that luscious collabo with Tito Paris, "Beijo De Saudade"). Others have seemingly popped out out of nowhere -- like Cesaria Evora's lost tapes from an impromptu recording session in Cape Verde 40 years ago. And then of course there's the musically ravenous Diplo, a DJ/producer who's helped make M.I.A. a pop star. Get caught up on the latest releases -- and listen to a free sampler after the jump.

FREE MP3 DOWNLOAD: Curumin, "Compacto"

Curumin is the Quannum artist who shouldn't be. On a Bay Area label of underground rappers, the young man born Luciano Nakata Albuquerque is a Brazilian multi-instrumentalist who doesn't rap and is, in many ways, an old-fashioned songwriter. But when Quannum co-founders Blackalicious toured Brazil in 2004, Curumin's manager slipped his first album, Achados e Perdidos, into their hands, and the group listened. What they heard seriously impressed them: a young man who had Stevie Wonder on the brain, James Brown in the beats and Jorge Ben in the melodies. Shortly after, they signed him.

Two things drive Curumin: a powerful nostalgia for the simplicity of childhood and a voracious appetite for new sounds. JapanPopShow, his second album, is a vintage-era masterpiece. But, for all its diverse influences -- Brazilian pop, soul, funk and reggae  -- it's also a complete musical universe. There are no loose threads. And given how beautifully textured the album is, perhaps it's not surprising he's a Quannum artist -- any hip-hop producer would want to sample these songs. (In fact, several rappers guest on the album.) We caught up with Rhapsody's Dig This! artist in early November, and asked him about all the usual stuff -- the album's name, his inspirations -- but we got a lot more: meditations on youth, our modern world, and what tradition means in the age of globalization.

[Click the "Continue Reading..." link to listen to a playlist featuring the music discussed in this post.]

Miriam Makeba led quite a life: she was the first African woman to win a Grammy. She performed before great political figures of her time, including John F. Kennedy and Nelson Mandela. When she gave an impassioned speech against apartheid before the United Nations in 1963, the South African government responded by banning her records -- and keeping her in exile from her home country for 31 long years.

Makeba never wanted to be at the center of the world's cultural storms; she simply wanted to sing. But what she chose to sing defined her life and career. She sang traditional songs from her Swazi and Xhosa backgrounds; she sang jazz and township music; she sang of joy and of struggle. Her own and her people's.

SoundTreks: A regular feature on the music the other 97 percent of the globe is listening to.

Buena Vista Social Club returned from the dead (almost literally) last week, and this week Puerto Rican rappers/provocateurs Calle 13 took on the living, breathing lyrical fire. (Colombian rock outfit Aterciopelados wasn't far behind on that front either.) Plus, a sneak preview of songs from a hotly anticipated Bollywood flick, and Los Lobos guitarist David Hidalgo goes folkloric ... again?

[Click the "Continue Reading..." link to listen to a playlist featuring the music discussed in this edition of SoundTreks.]