With Respect to Samba Listening Post 65. It’s no surprise that samba featured prominently at the Rio Olympics. But in the 100 years of Brazil’s iconic music form —the first song was registered in November 1916—samba has often struggled for respect. The...
The Power of Song Listening Post 64. In the 1980’s, before he had released a single record, Jaromír Nohavica was named one of the top 10 Czech artists in a national poll, but the Communist regime panned his lyrics and prevented him from performing at a festival. He...
Tracks to an Island Home Listening Post 63. Cape Verde has a diverse musical palette, but the international renown of the late Cesária Évora skewed the island nation’s reputation toward the melancholy morna style. Lura idolized Évora, with whom she performed, but she...
Remastered Poetry Listening Post 62. Dylan and Marley, Fela Kuti and Ramy Essam— musicians can move the world. Likewise Souad Massi, Algeria’s greatest female singer, who grew up on American music, relocated to France following death threats earned in a political rock...
Wave Back Listening Post 61. The key track of Clio’s eponymous debut album is Éric Rohmer est mort (Eric Rohmer Is Dead), a tribute to the New Wave director, who died in 2010: “I want more of him,” she laments, “of those lovers on suburban trains/Of Parisian squares...
Home Run Listening Post 60. Traffic, drought and Kardashians may dent the Los Angeles brand, but the city still charmed Habib Koité, the great Malian singer-songwriter and descendant of griots. L.A. is his tribute song, favorably measuring Southern California’s sun,...
Sighs and Wonders Listening Post 59. The musical seeds are familiar: Childhood violin lessons, a preference for Dylan and Joan Baez; first lyrics penned in English, first performance folk, dreams of starting a punk band. But this story belongs to Baghdad-born Nadin Al...
Fado and Happy Feet Listening Post 58. Fado is about soul and spirit, and Ana Moura is extraordinary at both. On her landmark sixth album, two of the more passionate and traditional songs (Moura and Moura Encantada) play off her name: in Portuguese folklore, mouras...
Wealth of a Poor Nation Listening Post 57. Nothing compensates for losses from war or disaster, but tragedy can generate compassion, medical advances and transformative art. Lakou Mizik, a collective of nine musicians formed after Haiti’s devastating 2010 earthquake,...
The Agony and the Ecstasy Listening Post 56. Reviews of his live shows describe Rotem Cohen as charming, engaging, funny—and with a soulful voice—but he took a crooked route to the stage. He tried acting school, but skipped classes to compose music. He wrote for some...
Glass Slippers and Ceilings Listening Post 55. On the strength of Hellen Caroline’s first album in 2014, critics and Brazilian fans dubbed her “the Princess of Pagode.” The title didn’t win her a pair of glass slippers but the album helped her break the glass ceiling...
Country Sharp Listening Post 54. Kacey Musgraves is a traditional country singer driven by a honeyed voice with a Texas twang. She’s also a progressive in a conservative world, penning lyrics about marijuana, acceptance of homosexuality and questioning of religion....
Shelter from the Storm Listening Post 53. Art expresses universal themes shaped by a specific environment and individual talent. For the singer-songwriter Ásgeir Trausti, the environment is Iceland, and his music reflects the tension between uncontrollable forces of...
French Fried Listening Post 52. When Sophie Tapie appeared on The Voice/France she wanted to perform songs by Johnny Cash but bowed to warnings of how French viewers might vote; she did Bruno Mars and Johnny Hallyday instead. Lesson learned, when the time came to...
Town & Country Listening Post 51. Aesop’s story of the city mouse and the country mouse described a clash of worldviews. In the hands and voice of the German singer-songwriter Claudia Koreck, city and country are competing and complementary forces within one body....
Dutch Master Listening Post 50. No nation rich in musical talent seems simultaneously so remote and yet so tantalizingly close to the English-speaking world as the Netherlands. At the top of an impressive array of Dutch singer-songwriters is Guus Meeuwis, who has won...
Tempered Joy Listening Post 49. There’s mystery and tension between the title of Aneta Langerová’s fourth album Na Radosti (On Joy) and its brooding, nostalgic tone. Mixing a pop sensibility with folkloric tropes and narratives, Langerová—one of the leading Czech...
A Star On Screen and Off Listening Post 48. Hollywood playback singers are traditionally heard but not seen. In Bollywood, however, the performers whose voices appear on film soundtracks are often as renowned as the actors who appear on screen. Arijit Singh’s 30-track...
Music Man Listening Post 47. Joël Jaccoulet is a producer, arranger, songwriter and musician who has a passion for the sounds of his own culture but doesn’t hesitate to mix styles—for what is Créole if not a blend? On Créole Pop he assembles an extraordinary...
Just This Once Listening Post 46. Amonafi (Once Upon a Time) is a collection of stories by a multi-cultural, multi-lingual, multi-instrumentalist singer-songwriter. Born in Mauritania, raised in Senegal and transplanted to France, Daby Touré has fashioned the strands...
Call Him Ismael Listening Post 45. Few artists juggle as many elements as the Spanish cantautor Ismael Serrano. First, there is the potent and cohesive mix of social comment and protest alongside songs of love and heartbreak. Then, his soft baritone, clear even when...
Country Girl on a Wire Listening Post 44. Life is a balancing act, even for overachievers like Paula Fernandes, one of Brazil’s most accomplished and celebrated singer-songwriters. In addition to selling more than 10 million albums, she regularly appears on lists like...
Tongue Tide Rising Listening Post 43. When UNESCO pronounced the Manx language extinct in 2009, it received incredulous letters from the Isle of Man—written in Manx. A prime ingredient of the island’s linguistic revival is it’s lively music scene, at the head of which...
Floating to the Top Listening Post 42. The second album by Jérémy Frérot and Florian Delavega explores and floats between innocence and experience, dream and reality, yesterday and today—and, as the title indicates, shadow and light. Just a year after their...
Follow This Nomad Listening Post 41. Mamak Khadem defies categorization. Born in Iran and rooted in Persian classical styles, she has also studied North Indian and Balkan traditions. Resettled in Los Angeles, she spent 10 years as lead singer for Axiom of Choice, a...
I Sing, Therefore I Am Listening Post 40. Fado means destiny. And for Carminho, destiny is fado, by nature and nurture. Her mother is a fado singer and her parents ran a popular Libson fado club; her sumptuous and nuanced voice soars without roaring and softens...
Lush Latin Spectrum Listening Post 39. Fonseca became one of Latin America’s leading singer-songwriters using an explosive mix of vallenato and cumbia—Colombia’s traditional folk styles—with tropipop. On Conexión, he offers a riveting pan-Latin blend. In Ya No Mi...
Walking on Air Listening Post 38. One fine day in September 2014, three girls took a walk on a country road in Georgia, the Caucasus Mountains nation perched between Russia and Turkey. As they walked, they sang a Georgian folk song, and one of the girls filmed a...
Silver Linings Listening Post 37. People who lose parents during childhood often develop heightened empathy and resilience. Maaike Ouboter’s parents died when she was in high school and in 2013, at age 21, she channeled her feelings into the reality show “The Best...
Pacific Family Matters Listening Post 36. As a teenager, Opetaia Foa’i knew music was his calling—to the chagrin of his family, for whom singing was integral to life but hardly a profession. Born in Samoa—father from Tokelau, mother from Tuvalu—and raised in New...
