my favourite song right now

Pierre Akendengue's "Ta'Nzambe" is to Timbaland as Fela Kuti was to James Brown: it sounds of its time (e.g. production values on female choir and the clipped, interstitial vocal shards at the end) yet sacrifices none of its inherited clattering, multi-meter/-tempo/-everything communal rhythmic complexity, and renders it perhaps even more mind-boggling.

Zoilus recently pointed to this new blog, the introductory post to which tackles a question I sometimes ask myself, especially after reading about a musician delving into traditional musics from far away: what of those countries' modern music?

This one of numerous ways in which world music is constructed leaving most of us thinkin that most countries just have really traditional music, collaborative projects with Ry Cooder and westernized pop in their own language(s). Even then, a lot of times, people tend think of most music from other countries as being "traditional," "folk" or "ethnic", forgetting that other cultures might have a different rubric for pop music, and for classical music.