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

A lot of debate has occurred over the course of music history about whether music itself can really effect political change. In real life, the connection between music and change often seems tenuous at best -- the dream of an aging hippie or an over-eager musicologist -- in the face of more direct or even violent means of revolution. But then, every so often, you hear a voice like Mercedes Sosa's, and all that skepticism washes away. Sosa's songs weren't always political, nor were her performances always even necessarily connected to revolutionary movements (despite the Argentinean government's opinions to the contrary). And she herself said, "Artists are not political leaders. The only power they have is to draw people into the theater." But the weapon the woman had at her disposal, which she often called the "voice of the voiceless," was precisely that: her powerful, compelling voice, a voice rich enough to convey her convictions, a voice capable of inspiring people and giving them strength.

Born in 1935 to a poor family in San Miguel de Tucuman (in Argentina's sugarcane country), Sosa won her first singing competition at age 15 and went on to help pioneer the musical-political nueva cancion movement that swept Latin America in the 1960s. The movement shed light on the concerns of the working people and the disenfranchised in the face of oppressive dictatorships. Though she was not known as a songwriter, Sosa put her own distinctive stamp on many of her peers' tunes, imbuing their tales of struggle and protest with her versatile style (which drew from not only Argentinean folk traditions, but also a wide range Latin genres), her bombo drum and, especially, her evocative contralto voice. In the 1970s, the ruling military junta took notice of her influence (as well as her connections to leftist groups), and the government's harassment forced her into exile. She lived for several years in France and Spain, brokenhearted and working as a musician and a teacher. When she returned to Argentina in 1982, she discovered that she had become a folk hero for her oppressed countrymen. She retained that esteemed position for the rest of her career.


A few of the thousands of mourners who came out to pay their respects in Buenos Aires

Over the course of her career, Sosa released 70 albums (several of which won Grammy and Latin Grammy awards), performed in venues like Carnegie Hall and the Coliseum, collaborated with artists ranging from Caetano Veloso to Pavarotti to Joan Baez, and served as a UNESCO goodwill ambassador. When she passed away on October 4 due to liver, kidney and heart problems, we lost one of Latin America's most beloved singers and a compassionate musical visionary. But the mark that powerful voice left on the world is indelible and prolific.

Take a listen to a few of the late, great Mercedes Sosa's most powerful moments below. Or Rhapsody users can listen to a full selection of her best work on this tribute playlist, a mere tip of this artist's considerable iceberg of work:

Playlist: R.I.P. Mercedes Sosa, 1935-2009

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!

It's weird, going back to school in your late '30s. Ok, it's not really "school," it's just German class. (I've been living in Berlin since November, and it seemed time to move beyond the "Ein bier, bitte" phase.) Still, it's class -- four hours a day, five days a week, beginning at 8:30 in the morning, every morning. That might not sound like much to anyone earning a legitimate living, but for someone whose work revolves around late nights and deadline panic, the structure and the hour are humbling. To cope, I've found myself unexpectedly setting my alarm earlier than need be, to carve out an hour for coffee and the Times online. For the first time in my life, I've become a morning person.

But a morning person needs morning music, and I've been on the search for just the right records to come alive to. I've found some gems: Jon Hassell's fantastic new album for ECM, Last Night the Moon Came Dropping its Clothes in the Street, unfolds at a pace and with an easy grace that's perfectly suited to the mushy mind; I'd say that it feels a little like yoga for the ears, if that didn't sound so icky. And Mocky's lullaby-like Saskamodie works just as well at the opposite end of the day.

The point, in selecting a daybreak soundtrack, is the pacing: I need a selection of songs that moves, over the course of an hour, from gentle to quietly rousing to full-on emboldening. (How the heck else am I going to face all those declensions?) The playlist below (and posted here at Rhapsody's Playlist Central) is a first attempt at just such a mix, skewing towards reassuring ambiance, "world music" oddities, glowing oldies and unabashed sentimentalism. What's in heavy rotation for you, first thing in the morning?

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.
 

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

The Shanghai Restoration Project have always, true to their name, been focused on renovation. Usually, that rehabbing spirit has been more metaphorical: the group, founded by Chinese American producer Dave Liang, expertly reworks Chinese folk and classical music and hip-hop, blending them in a hybridized mash-up that is danceable and evocative, traditional and innovative. This year, however, besides releasing an album of their own, S.R.P. paired up with globally minded Americana singer-songwriter and clawhammer banjoist Abigail Washburn to do some slightly more literal rebuilding with their innovative joint project, Afterquake.

Take a listen to some of the Shanghai Restoration Project's reconstructions (including Afterquake) on this playlist. To keep reading about this fascinating collaboration and other S.R.P. recordings, click the link below the playlist.

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.

When you think of "world music" (debates about whether that term is a misnomer aside), Canada probably isn't the first place that jumps to mind. We Americans tend to think of Canada as this, uh, less interesting version of us, whereas we like to think of world music as coming from someplace both geographically and artistically remote (again, saving the politics of that debate for another time). (Not to mention that when we put the word "Canada" next to the word "music," an image of Celine Dion inevitably springs to mind.)

But our friendly neighbor to the north is host to more than enough good sounds to (almost) purge the memory of "My Heart Will Go On" forever from your ears. This week's SoundTreks is the first in a short intermittent series of posts about Canadian world and traditional music, a topic that will dance across Cape Breton fiddling, Acadian dance jams, Vancouver global fusion, and First Nations hip-hop, among others.

M.I.A.

I spend part of my work week crafting thematic playlists -- artist overviews, label profiles, irreverent flights of fancy -- many of which turn up here on the blog. (You can see all of them on my page at Playlist Central.) Usually the topic is up to me, but occasionally I'm given an assignment like last week's, which asked editors across all genres (mine is electronic music) to come up with a decade-specific list. 

Obviously, that poses a challenge for a genre already so closely identified with just a couple of decades. Electronic music wasn't born yesterday, to be sure: the Theremin was invented nearly a century ago, and synthesizers and tape-splicing were in use by the 1950s, leading to an explosion of activity, from Stockhausen to sci-fi soundtracks (to the Chipmunks). By the '70s, disco, electro-funk and hip-hop were all recasting popular music in a purely electronic form, paving the way for the synth-pop, industrial and house music of the '80s. And I don't think I really need to remind anyone of the way all manner of electronic music exploded in the '90s.

By this point, '80s and '90s recaps are bound to cover familiar terrain (although I must say that I am eager to see a reappraisal of the minimalist and ambient electronica of the early '90s -- Seefeel, Sun Electric and the like -- as more of it becomes available online). I thought it might be more interesting to focus on an aspect of the present decade -- and a development, moreover, that's really only emerged since the turn of the '80s. From where I'm sitting -- in Berlin, to be specific, after years-long stints in Barcelona and San Francisco -- the obvious candidate is electronic music's growing global consciousness.

Electronic dance music has always been an especially mobile form, thanks in part to the diminished role that vocals (and hence languages) play. But as house, techno, hip-hop and other electronic forms have continued to spread worldwide, they've sprouted up in new, unusual forms just about everywhere they've touched down. It's only fitting that a music whose roots dig into the soil of at least three continents should produce further mutations in Argentina, Brazil, South Africa and Angola, to name just a few points on an increasingly crowded map.

M.I.A.'s "Paper Planes" was just the tip of the iceberg (or perhaps that should read, "nose of the jetliner"?). Her international smash shares DNA with kuduro, kwaito, cumbia, funk carioca and every other proudly mongrel style that has come from local kids getting their hands on samplers and rewriting the rules to suit their own purposes.

My decade playlist, "Global Beats for the '00s," salutes those circuit-benders and margin-walkers -- along with their allies from America and Europe -- helping to spread the global gospel. It includes 29 tracks from the likes of Buraka Som Sistema, Ghislain Poirier, DJ Mujava, Radioclit, DJ Rupture, Filastine, Mexican Institute of Sound and more, with detours via Cesaria Evora (as remixed by Carl Craig), Juana Molina and everyone's favorite Chilean-German DJ, Ricardo Villalobos. Click here to eavesdrop on these beatmakers' global game of "telephone."

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.