World Music

Beats Antique on Tribal Belly Dance and the Common Thread in Global Party Rhythms

By J POET Beats Antique's kaleidoscopic carnival of belly dancers and musicians moves to a dizzying whirl of electronica mashed up with Middle Eastern grooves, Balkan wedding music, flamenco, French gypsy jazz, hip-hop, and dub reggae, for a sound that appeals to world music lovers as well as dance ... More >>

Seun Kuti: Show Preview

Soul-Funk Outfit The Budos Band Wants To Harsh Your Mellows, Hippies

Lotsa people, lotsa attitude.​You've got to love New Yorkers for their blatant honesty. Speaking to Jared Tankel, baritone saxophone player in 10-piece Staten Island global-funk group The Budos Band, he makes it clear to aspiring rappers that his instrumental band is not interested in collaboratin ... More >>

Fool's Gold puts Hebrew words over Muslim music. Everybody dances.

Hebrew for "Happiness"

Taj Mahal, Ravi Shankar, Vieux Farka Touré Among Performers in SF Jazz Festival

Cedric AngelesVieux Farka Touré​The nonprofit SFJAZZ announced its lineup today for the 28th annual San Francisco Jazz Festival, which runs from September 14 to November 20. Tickets go on sale Sunday, July 11, and prices vary for each concert. Highlights include:Taj Mahal, Toumani Diabaté and Vi ... More >>

Monday's Pick: Tinariwen at Yoshi's

Thomas Dorn​TinariwenYoshi's SF8 p.m. and 10 p.m., $20-$30The term "desert blues" is more than a little reductive, but it does at least begin to describe the sound of Tinariwen, a North African group of Tuareg tribesmen. Over bass and hand percussion in swaying, trance-like rhythms that threaten t ... More >>

Show preview: Tinariwen

Sweet and Saur

Heavyweight Bass Rumble

Weekend Chatter: Buraka Som Sistema Q&A

​Lisbon-based Buraka Som Sistema headlines Mezzanine Saturday night, bringing its mashup of vocal percussion with zombified, broken-legged dance contortions. The foursome who leapt into global view with 2008's Black Diamond is now making its second SF visit. The group will batter crowds with dis ... More >>

Bigger than Gandhi

Weekend Pick #1: Fela B-Day Celebration

Afrobeat's Ancestor: Fela Kuti​ It's hard to think of a more iconic artist than Fela Anikulapo Kuti. The founder of Afrobeat, who famously proclaimed "music is a weapon," was both a voice of progressive social change--and often uncomfortably-honest socioeconomic critique--and a musical visiona ... More >>

Ricardo Lemvo brings the Mambo to GAMH Tomorrow

Ricardo Lemvo​ Along with Habib Koite, Ricardo Lemvo  is one of those guys who always seems to be on every Putumayo world music compilation, playing funky Congolese-inflected Latin music. Though he's currently based in Los Angeles, Lemvo hasn't appeared much on local stages, so world music ... More >>

Aphrodesia spreads Afrobeat cross-country

Femi Kuti

King Sunny Adé's legnthy reign

Berkeley World Music Festival This Weekend

Wassup, World: Markus James and the Wassonrai To travel around the world this weekend, all you have to do is hop on BART and come to Berkeley. The annual Berkeley World Music Festival happens Saturday, June 6, with various ethnic music specialists and purveyors of global rhythms in an around the T ... More >>

Experience Afrofunk: Sila Drops New Album

EKAphotographyElectable: Sila performs with the AFE at Stern Grove San Francisco's favorite Kenyan Afro-groovester, Victor Sila, has just released Black President, his second album with the Afrofunk Experience. I'll admit to being a bit biased--Sila is a friend of mine, and I wrote his bio--but I r ... More >>

The Wanderers

Alice Russell Comes to SF

Digby OldridgeCrazy just like you: Alice RussellThese days, apparently, British pop-soul sirens are a dime a dozen. Why, all you have to do is go to any smoke-filled pub in Nottingham, peer under the table, and you'll find the next Joss Stone, Lily Allen, or Amy Crackhouse. Seriously, though, Alice ... More >>

Global Drum Project Snags World Music Grammy

Global Drum Project Former Grateful Dead drummer Mickey Hart didn't invent world music. But he was among the first to take it out of the hands of ethnomusicologists and into the clutches of pop culture. Eighteen years ago, Hart and tabla titan Zakir Hussain won the first World Music Grammy for ... More >>

International crate digging gets new life online

Gettin' brassy with the Hornucopia Festival

Black Stars:

Ghana's Hiplife Generation (Out Here)

Local label Six Degrees earns three Grammy nods

Youssou N'Dour

Rokku Mi Rokka (Nonesuch)

Bay Area's Annual Didjeridu Fix To Be Satiated Friday

Balkan Beat Box

Nu Med (J-Dub)

Zap Mama

Supermoon (Heads Up)

Mission Indian That's Not Pakwan For Once

Lemonade samples the world on the way to the dance floor

We Are the World

Global fusion takes club music to outernational heights

Fantastic Voyage

Get off your high horse and listen to some fine world music at "Putumayo: Latinas -- Women of Latin America"

Feed Your Head

The San Francisco International Arts Festival now rocks with world music

House of Tudor

A rap-war documentary, the old new wave, and Gypsy-fied French noir

Music

The Week's Can't-Miss Performance

Russell Gunn aims outside the boundaries of jazz convention

There's a Griot Goin' On

Guitarist and singer Habib Kolte expands on the vibrant musical traditions of Mali

House Of Tudor

Silke Tudor explores sensual songbirds, chaotic mandalas, and constipated tyrants

A Matter of Degrees

Local label Six Degrees weathers the storm of success

Good Golly, It's Mali

Oumou Sangaré and Habib Koité

Tool(s) of the Man

Mickey Hart is still pursuing that perfect beat -- in words, sound, and even government service

Riff Raff

It's a Big World After All; When Your Band Breaks; Oops

Let the Rhythm Hit 'Em

Zakir Hussain is one of the country's finest tabla musicians, but can Indian percussion music play in Peoria? It just did.

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Night & Day

Fiddling With Tradition

For local klezmer musicians, experimenting with Jewish music's history is just as important as embracing it

Reviews

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