If you want to understand a culture, eat what the grandmothers cook and listen to the hip-hop the kids are bumping (preferably at the same time, but if not, that’s fine).
Aight, so, hip-hop is probably the best thing Americans have invented since jazz. Perhaps even the chocolate chip cookie. It’s also, in my opinion, the most relevant and important genre of music of all time. One of my initial ideas for this project was to listen to one hip-hop album from every country, but I quickly realized that just wasn’t possible. There are still a good amount of languages where hip-hop is extremely difficult to conduct (ever tried rapping in German?), there are of course, languages that are easier (French, Spanish, Japanese, Portuguese, Italian, Canadian, whatever they speak in the UK, etc…) and several other cultures that have adapted. Here are some international finds.
And I'm not going to make art just to please them/
I will not censure myself so as not to disturb you/
I come to tell my story not to have good manners.
This pause, this time, this space/
Gray days, on the calendar/
The only news is from movies/
Disjunctive Ridicule, destroy routine/
The void that only fills the music/
The only crucifix in my diacritical life/
Wrecking in the middle of the bed/
Hugging a pillow without finding a sheet/
That covers this nakedness made of doubts/
Best pencil and paper and an instrument.
Rapped 99% in Spanish, I fear this woman. Coming straight from the Guatemalan underground, her flow is beyond slick, and these beats are incredibly cool and unique. Like, this is just super dope stuff. Fill with poetic and harsh lyrics, it’s def worth a translation. Rapping the verses, singing the hooks, it’s almost a one-woman show apart from two guest verses, and Lane completely helms the project top-to-bottom. She had a bit hit in 2014, but still, the confidence here is unreal. Not every track is gold, but it’s still a great find.
Fiiiiine, is it technically the States? Sure, but I still wanted to include the Virgin Islands seperately. It sounds like what’s produced on the mainland, but regardless, it’s a solid underground hip-hop album that I definitely rec. Think if Wu-Tang went Gorillaz.
Instrumental hip-hop (mostly). Jazzy, African-ish, island-y, all very fresh, chill and clean. Solid stuff, but not mindblowing. Worth a quiet listen. Give his self-titled a listen too, it's a smidge better.
Warchild is slightly more spoken word/poetry/story telling than ‘flowing’ hip-hop, but it works. Jal is based in Toronto now, but grew up as a child of war in South Sudan. I gotta admit, his birth name Jal Jok is a little cooler than his pseudonym, but that’s beside the point. The album is his story. The final track, Emma, is more-or-less a thank you letter to Emma McCune (married to Riek Machar, but saved a whole bunch of children before her death). It’s a decent record, but Jal knows he's evidently not the best rapper, straying from the mic as much as possible. Still worth a spin, and No Bling is a banger.
Considering the country’s geographical size, dense location, and variety of resources, not too many people live in Kazakhstan. Frankly, I feel like a lot of Westerners (including myself) forget it exists. Digging for records from here, this recent hip-hop album was about all I could turn up that sparked my interest (which came as a small surprise considering everything). It’s a dark record, Slim Shady-esque in essense, evidently douchey, surprisingly confident, and I understood absolutely none of it. Production borrows from a lot of 80’s American, but freshened up a little. Little dusty, little funky, little jazzy, but all heavy hitting. Can’t say I’ll ever love it, but it was an interesting listen.
Did it sound like the vocals were being played backwards the entire time? Yes. But it was quite pretty. Fantastic production for 1975 too... sounds more late 80's early 90's. Thoroughly enjoyed it, thank you Jimmy.
Last edited by Hayden on 01/17/2018 21:18; edited 1 time in total
I should have posted this earlier but Dunya was such a dope record. And there next record is even better. I need to give the Texture Like Sun a listen.
I should have posted this earlier but Dunya was such a dope record. And there next record is even better. I need to give the Texture Like Sun a listen.
Great to hear That's definitely a strong record for getting people into African music... somewhat mainstream, punchy, hip, great musicianship, etc... Glad you enjoyed it. Mo Kolours is completely different, but I hope you enjoy that as well. Still holding out on him releasing something grand one day.
Folk/rock, very 70’s-esque. The guy only had two albums, and I can’t find much else about him (I think he was based in Brazil though). Not a bad album, bit of grit, bit of soul. Is the drum off-beat sometimes? Sure. But it’s fine. Ish. Also, you gotta check out the cover art of his debut, it's fantastic.
Chill, relaxing, something to groove to. There's essentially only 4 songs, but they all change up somewhat in the dead centre of each track. Cool find, no complaints.
(A really poor excuse, but I can't find anything from there... more just to check it off the list than anything else... fairly pointless field recording... Jeph is from Guam, so, like, it counts or something. Apologies.)
Ali Akbar Khan is more from Bangladesh in theory than actually from there (he's older than the country), but I think this counts. Classical sarod, 80 minutes of it. Think Ravi Shankar, but a different flavour. Fantastic music to soundtrack chilling sessions or possibly doing drugs.
Last edited by Hayden on 01/18/2018 17:34; edited 2 times in total
I think I said I was going to do a special edition on Ghana, but this might have to suffice. Ghana's a fantastic country for music (and food), perhaps even slightly underappreciated. There's this pretty cool scene there right now called hiplife (highlife meets hip-hop) and I'm hoping it takes off across Africa. Dope stuff.
Whenever I come across a bin of 70's records from Ghana, it's hard not to give them a spin. Everything seems to be worth listening to, the dubs are still aight, and the gems are fantastic. It's somewhere I'm always finding new arrangements and sounds from, surprisingly fresh even digging as far back as the 60's. I'm posting a few below as recs, none of them being official entries (perhaps a solid entry point to the country's music though). Hoping everyone finds something they like.
This is Ebo Taylor's self-titled, which I only heard for the first time yesterday. Figured it was about time... I'd heard about 4 or 5 other albums from him, but this is always considered his 'best'. Still think I prefer Conflict, but it's a great album. Great horns, great grooves, poetic delivery, fun yet melancholy, a staple of Ghanaian highlife. An album you don't have to worry about not coming through, solid until the end. Def rec (or, at least check out Ebo Taylor, he's got some other great stuff as well).
Just go listen to some pre-1950 classical music, it’s probably from here. Or some Fennesz. Or the soundtrack to The Third Man. Just go watch The Third Man soundtracked by Fennesz with a mug of puncsh or someth
Here's Molto Brutto. They make punk music that goes du-du-du-du-du-du-du-brrm-brrm.
Dem some fast hands. Guitar improvisations, some good, some bad, smidge tedious at times, but worth it. It’s slightly unlike anything I’ve ever heard composition wise… not particularly middle eastern, not particularly American, but it gels. Give it a spin if it sounds like your thing. First track was my favourite by quite a bit, but there’s still some great moments in the later ones.
Going with an old fav from Norway. There's tonnes of fantastic music from Norway... I'm sure ever member on BEA has heard at least 2 or 3 records from there whether they realize it or not (maybe 50 if they like metal).
Butterfly is a reissued comp of sorts from Radka Toneff, a prominent jazz singer from Oslo that unexpectedly died in the early 80's. She has some fantastic material, easily some of the best vocal jazz outside USA/Canada/Japan. Beautiful voice, nothing ever allowing itself to go under the radar... kinda like Nina Simone in a sense, you're always thinking about what the next thing she'll say is. Underappreciated, so I'll give it a shoutout. She has an album titled Fairytales that's quite popular as well (noticed it even has a handful of votes on BEA), but I've never managed to give it a spin... hopefully sometime soon.
Last edited by Hayden on 01/21/2018 12:47; edited 1 time in total
Aight... getting down to the grindstone here... have 21 countries left on the list, 15 of which I've never heard anything from. Kinda got my queue of what I'll check out, but I'm still having difficulty with these:
Aight... getting down to the grindstone here... have 21 countries left on the list, 15 of which I've never heard anything from. Kinda got my queue of what I'll check out, but I'm still having difficulty with these:
Malta
Montenegro
United Arab Emirates
If anyone has any recs, that'd be appreciated.
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I've got you for Montenegro. It's a mid 70's funk-rock record. Sounds a bit like the soundtracks of Lalo Schifrin.
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