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You are here: Home / Open Threads / Semi-Respite Open Thread: World Music

Semi-Respite Open Thread: World Music

by Anne Laurie|  April 23, 202012:10 am| 30 Comments

This post is in: Open Threads

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One World: At Home Together sent me down various YouTube rabbit holes, which I’m sure the experts would condemn as the Sub-Saharan equivalent of bubblegum pop, but I’m finding it all very soothing / energizing right now…

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Reader Interactions

30Comments

  1. 1.

    MaxUtil

    April 23, 2020 at 12:17 am

    Sona Jobarteh! Highly respected kora player from the Gambia. That’s not any of that dreaded “pop”.

  2. 2.

    Anne Laurie

    April 23, 2020 at 12:22 am

    @MaxUtil: See how little I know?  She showed up on my YouTube bar between Sho Madjozi and Angelique Kidjo (speaking of two artists who don’t have all *that* much in common), and I really liked the video…

  3. 3.

    Anya

    April 23, 2020 at 12:33 am

    I might die on this hill alone (at least on this blog), but I wish we retire the useless and problamatic term “Sub-Saharan Africa”.

  4. 4.

    mrmoshpotato

    April 23, 2020 at 12:39 am

    Everything is world music – well, except the theremin. Spooky space music.

  5. 5.

    HumboldtBlue

    April 23, 2020 at 12:43 am

    That’s fantastic.

    Playing for Change performed “Chan Chan” the other day.

  6. 6.

    mrmoshpotato

    April 23, 2020 at 12:47 am

    @Anya: What if we call the other part Floaty Boat-Saharan Africa?

  7. 7.

    Prometheus Shrugged

    April 23, 2020 at 12:50 am

    @Anya: Speaking strictly as a climatologist, this term has considerable utility because it defines wind and moisture balance regimes.

    I know that you’re talking about culture, but the term is not going to be retired in the scientific literature.

  8. 8.

    Fair Economist

    April 23, 2020 at 12:54 am

    God, I love Angelique Kidjo. Bought one of her albums way back in the olden days just because I liked the cover and did I luck out on that purchase. And she can still sing like that at 60! Just amazing.

  9. 9.

    Yutsano

    April 23, 2020 at 1:02 am

    @mrmoshpotato: That’s not the point. Sub-Saharan Africa is 46 distinct countries with hundreds of different cultures. We readily acknowledge the existence of the Arab countries north of the Sahara desert* yet we lump everything below that arbitrary line into one piece. Africa is very diverse, very alive, and very differentiated. We should stop doing the peoples who live the the disservice of cutting them off as distinct entities.

    BTW I know you’re being funny. It’s just a good opportunity to start changing our thinking on this part of the world.

    *yes I am massively oversimplifying.

  10. 10.

    HumboldtBlue

    April 23, 2020 at 1:12 am

    Mexico Lindo y Querido

  11. 11.

    Amir Khalid

    April 23, 2020 at 1:28 am

    @Anya:

    It is a simple geographic description for a contiguous region: that part of Africa south of the great desert. It doesn’t per se imply anything about that region. I’m aware that the term sometimes gets used as code for negaive attributes e.g. black*, poor, underdeveloped, corrupt and/or authoritarian government. The problem, it seems to me, is not that name but those associations.

    *I myself don’t see being black as negative, but obviously there are some who do.

  12. 12.

    HumboldtBlue

    April 23, 2020 at 1:34 am

    You may not have 98 minutes to spare for the whole shebang, but at least carve out 10 to listen for just a bit.

    Brubeck brought to you by Wynton Marsalis and the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra.

  13. 13.

    Amir Khalid

    April 23, 2020 at 1:48 am

    This strangely haunting bit of movie music just happened to be playing in my head. It accompanies a scene where a pædiatric neurosurgeon performs a controversial procedure on a very young patient. It’s not from my part of the world — so I can consider it “world music”, right?

  14. 14.

    Anne Laurie

    April 23, 2020 at 1:50 am

    @Anya: What’s the preferred term?

    (My semi-relevant experience is thirty years out of date.)

  15. 15.

    prostratedragon

    April 23, 2020 at 1:55 am

    I wish I could recall the name of either artist who did an album together fewer than 10 years ago. They were a man who is a blues singer (not Magic Slim I don’t think, but similar name) and a woman who sings in a Mediterranean tradition. Just heard one or two songs, but they were tremendous together. Deep dive into my ridiculous music bookmark file comes up empty so far.

  16. 16.

    Amir Khalid

    April 23, 2020 at 2:01 am

    Via The Guardian‘s coronavirus liveblog, Angélique Kidjo has released a version of Miriam Makeba’s classic Pata Pata with new, topical lyrics.

  17. 17.

    HumboldtBlue

    April 23, 2020 at 2:07 am

    Ella Fitzgerald gets some guy to play guitar alongside her, 1975 or so.

  18. 18.

    prostratedragon

    April 23, 2020 at 2:13 am

    @HumboldtBlue:  Joe Pass? I have Anatomy of a Murder in my ear at the moment, but that duo popped up in the queue. (Amir started it with Mark Snow.)

  19. 19.

    HumboldtBlue

    April 23, 2020 at 2:19 am

    @prostratedragon:

    Yup, and yes it’s Amir’s fault.

  20. 20.

    Amir Khalid

    April 23, 2020 at 2:24 am

    @HumboldtBlue:

    Sure, blame it on me. Hmmph.

    //

  21. 21.

    Mnemosyne

    April 23, 2020 at 2:45 am

    Not music, but Kamala Harris showed Mark Warner the correct way to make a tuna melt on Instagram Live and I am now DED from laughter.

    This clip is just the denouement where they talk about what Warner wants her to teach him next. You can hear Harris’s husband with a very Bob Belcher-like “oh my God” at about 40-45 seconds. ?

    https://mobile.twitter.com/blackwomenviews/status/1253081739406311424

  22. 22.

    prostratedragon

    April 23, 2020 at 2:57 am

    Back to Cuba:

    “Pensando,” Barbarito Torres and Ibrahim Ferrer

    The laud played by Mr. Torres is roughly a sibling of the aud played in the version of “Chan Chan” at the top.

  23. 23.

    Anotherlurker

    April 23, 2020 at 2:59 am

    @HumboldtBlue: This series of duets will never be equaled.  The level of artistry exhibited by Ella and Joe is seldom seen.

    Savor it.

  24. 24.

    mrmoshpotato

    April 23, 2020 at 3:07 am

    @Mnemosyne: “Who put the turkey in the toilet?!”

  25. 25.

    Amir Khalid

    April 23, 2020 at 3:22 am

    If you guys are ever curious about grocery prices in Malaysia, check out this video by a foreign visitor shopping for food in KL during lockdown. The market he goes to is part of the Isetan department store in Suria KLCC, the mall in the Petronas Towers’ podium block. It’s on the expensive side here, but still quite cheap cf. North American or European grocery prices.

  26. 26.

    NotMax

    April 23, 2020 at 3:31 am

    @mrmoshpotato

    The theremin is a perfectly cromulent instrument. Also too. Also three.

    ;)

  27. 27.

    Mnemosyne

    April 23, 2020 at 3:34 am

    @mrmoshpotato:

    “Just … just turn the wheel in literally any direction.”

    I think the family dynamic we figured out is:

    Tina is Bob’s favorite.
    Gene is Linda’s favorite.
    They’re both a little afraid of the amoral demon-child that is Louise.

  28. 28.

    mrmoshpotato

    April 23, 2020 at 3:47 am

    @Mnemosyne: They’re all afraid of Louise.  Did you see this episode?

  29. 29.

    the antibob

    April 23, 2020 at 7:49 am

    @Anne Laurie: Lovely set you put together. If you’ve discovered this is your sort of thing, the world can be yours with the Rough Guides to World Music and a Google Play or Spotify account.

  30. 30.

    UncleEbeneezer

    April 23, 2020 at 2:32 pm

    Sampa the Great does some really cool stuff.

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