Virtuous Circle Listening Post 298. Leyla McCalla stands enigmatically on the cover of Vari-Colored Songs, her dress pattern suggesting the solution to a puzzle: Connect the dots. On the album she sings eight Langston Hughes poems that she set to music, five...
Rhythmic Pairs and Geophysics Listening Post 293. Continents separated by geological forces are knit together again by human movement. But the case of Brazilian singer-songwriter Jabu Morales is exceptional: When she landed in cosmopolitan Barcelona she entered an...
Home Away from Home Listening Post 249. Iko Iko is a much-covered song about the collision of two Mardi Gras Indian tribes. On their second album, the Haitian ensemble Lakou Mizik reworks it as Iko Kreyòl, leaving the cryptic chorus intact but applying new verses...
Learning to Fly Listening Post 213. Sitting in a New York theater, Rhiannon Giddens was angered by a movie scene of a slave being raped. As the victim emerged into a group of onlookers, the camera focused not on her but on her husband, impelled by the assault to join...
Making Waves Listening Post 172. It’s easy to exaggerate a kindred connection between two people from the same city, even if they were born 150 years apart. But consider: Jules Verne, who grew up in Nantes, certainly knew that nature can send a wave thousands of miles...
Arc de Triomphe Listening Post 168. She has the look of today’s youth—pierced, tattooed, androgynous—and the soul of romantic poets through the ages. She blends her music but refuses to blend herself, or calibrate her career arc according to market forces. And therein...
Good Vibrations Listening Post 143. Bondeko, the work of three prodigiously gifted artists who mix voices and compositions to produce a dreamy, multi-layered sound, is a transcendent microcosm of the musical diversity of Africa and its Diaspora. The...
All in the Family Listening Post 70. Marijosé Alie is a journalist, author and singer-songwriter. Her daughter Fred is a painter with a background in architecture—and a singer-songwriter; younger daughter Sohée is an actress, dancer—and singer-songwriter. After years...
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,...
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...
Island Cadence Listening Post 30. Zouk emerged in Guadeloupe and Martinique as a carnival-beat music style, but in recent years it has taken on a more sensual cadence, conducive to slower dancing and love songs. It has also transcended its Caribbean origins,...
