Spotlights Archives
40 Years of Catch A Fire…
“Time is my ammunition,” says Bob Marley in a room at the Che… more »
Tim Maia’s Superbly Idi…
Although he died in 1998 at the age of 55 after nearly collapsing onstage… more »
Trans-Global Expression: John…
Capsule jazz histories tell us European harmony and African rhythm came t… more »
Janka Nabay: The Rebirth of B…
Sporting fingerless black leather gloves, a sleeveless festival T-shirt, … more »
Who is Arif Lohar? And Why Do…
Diminutive, rotund Arif Lohar looms large in the global pantheon of unlik… more »
The Sweltering Sound of Chich…
Two Frenchmen, two Yankees, a Mexican and a Venezuelan walk into a bar… more »
The Sublime Sound of Syria
When I saw Sabah Fakhri perform in New York City’s Town Hall in 199… more »
Bai Janha: The Afro-Rock Unde…
The Republic of Gambia — mainland Africa’s smallest nation … more »
New This Week: Sharon Van Ett…
OK! Are you guys ready to get bummed out? Because it’s the week bef… more »
New This Week: Lana Del Rey, …
Hey, have you guys heard anything about this Lana Del Rey person? I feel … more »
Iran and the Mournful Pop Nar…
The music of Iran has never made much of an impact on the West. It certai… more »
New This Week: Kathleen Edwar…
Hello! Welcome! It starts with a trickle, but always ends in a deluge: th… more »
New This Week: Keepaway, The …
HELLO! Welcome back! 2012! Here we are! Doing it in the 0-1-2! This will … more »
¡Ay Mami! Bring …
Anyone into Caribbean and/or Latin music is almost certainly familiar wit… more »
DJ /rupture: A Post-Digital G…
No disc jockey transports me back more reliably to the free-form radio tr… more »
Baaba Maal: Senegal’s O…
Two women sitting in front of me murmured in increasing exasperation as S… more »
Label Profile: Light in the A…
File under: Revitalized funk, folk and rock records from the States and a… more »
A Tale of Two Kutis
Born to different mothers in 1962 and 1982, respectively, afrobeat archit… more »
You Must Obey: Nigeria’…
Anyone mildly acquainted with modern African popular music has heard of K… more »
Alan Lomax’s Southern J…
At the height of the Great Depression, folklorist John Lomax and his 18-y… more »
The Incredible Lightness of B…
Tabu Ley Rochereau is more than just one of the greatest singers and comp… more »
The Weird Sisters of Finland
Jonna Karanka, Merja Kokkonen and Laura Naukkarinen are the Macbeth-ian w… more »
Larry Harlow’s Suite an…
Larry Harlow is the closest you’ll get to a missing link between th… more »
The Youthful Youssou N’…
Scholars in the field of Youssology – i.e., the study of all things… more »












