World Music is defined as Folk Music and Indigenous Music but more recently the genre has become the umbrella category for regional styles whether organic or digital. Chicago and Baltimore have their unique forms of Dance Music but try finding Juke or B-More club in the World section of your local Border's Books and you'll be left scrounging through some Celtic and Afro Pop compilations that have been long outdated even in their own regions. So, if Chicago and Baltimore don't make the grade despite being unique to their cities and seldom seeing light in popular media it begs the question of what truly defines the term "World Music". A closer look shows that the various styles in that section, although broad in racial and ethnic variety, have the commonality of deriving from typically poor, undeveloped countries. Aren't the musicians in New Orleans and Washington DC who play Zydeco and Go-Go living in poor subpar conditions too. I guess, in the end, the deciding factor of what separates "regular" music from "world" music is it's position on the Pop chart and whether or not the artists have indoor plumbing.
PODCAST INTERVIEW with BURAKA SOM SISTEMA
Enter Buraka Som Sistema, a four man crew (Dj Riot, Conductor, MC Kalaf, and Lil' John) from Lisbon who have championed the Angolan sounds of Kuduro Music, a form of Electro Dance music with origins in traditional African rhythms. Thanks to artists like M.I.A. and Diplo bringing everything from Soca, Baile Funk, and B-More Club to the Uptown dance floors of every major city, the philosophy of free trade is now actively being practiced through music (take notes World Bank). "We love what M.I.A. does, and what Diplo does. I think M.I.A. showed us that you can go global by speaking local." says MC Kalaf who with his partners have dared to stray from the typical path of Daft Punk stylizers and Crookers copy-cats. The four members have worked individually since early 2000 producing Hip-Hop music with influences ranging from Eruo Dance to Seattle Grunge, "We don't have any Portuguese Pop stars or things that went world wide so we grew up on importing everything form Hip-Hop to Rock to everything."
The African country of Angola, like Brazil, was colonized by the Portuguese hundreds of years ago. Fast forward to the the 1990's, with influences being shipped in from Europe, musicians began to produce their own form of dance music using old computers and bootleg software. The result of this was Kuduro, a high energy syncopated and glitchy genre that became the official music of the ghetto's. "They developed dance moves to go along with that. All that mixture with the dance and the beats made Kuduro a national movement. The same thing that happened with Hip-Hop in the 70’s and the 80’s in America is what they have now with Kuduro." Kalaf further explains, "Buraka is really the representation of Lisbon, being the capitol of Portugal [which colonized] Brazil, Angola, Mozambique, and so many countries, Lisbon has become a melting pot." The heavy concentration of Angolan people made Kuduro the official sound of Lisbon's ghettos in the same way Dirty South has become the dominant sound of popular Hip-Hop in the states. "We had a club night once a month in Lisbon. Instead of us just playing songs form America, songs from London why don’t [we play] some local things. Those local things were Kuduro. We started doing that and everybody went crazy! What we did was pick up on that scene [that was] in the suburbs and all the ghettos and we [played it for] a kind of hipster and posh audience." The attention drawn to Buraka (named after the neighborhood of Buraca in Lisbon) lead them to the creation of their first EP, From Buraka To The World in 2006 and the 2009 release of the full length CD Black Diamond.
.jpg)
Being on tour and appearing at many of the major Pop and Dance Music Festivals around the world should align Buraka Som Sistema with the Electronic heavyweights of the current scene. But will the retailers place them in the more secular "Dance" section or will they be doomed to the "World" shelf between the tribal percussionists and Gregorian chanters? The litmus test will be the dance floors of every major city proving that you can go global by speaking locally.
PODCAST INTERVIEW with BURAKA SOM SISTEMA
podcast produced by D. Painter