Right now, the world’s focus is on Rio for the 2016 Olympics. Brazil is on our minds, too, so we’ve made a weekend playlist filled with international collaborations between Brazilian artists and other musicians from around the globe. These are some extraordinary duets, from bossa nova to tropicalia and beyond. No Olympic competition here — just collaboration!

Astrud Gilberto and Stan Getz

“The Girl From Ipanema” was the height of bossa nova, and it’s still the song everyone conjures when they think of Rio. The song was inspired by a real person, Helô Pinheiro, who would pass by the bar-café where composers Antonio Carlos Jobim and Vinicius De Moraes sat and sought inspiration. Astrud Gilberto and Stan Getz‘s version was a worldwide smash in 1964.

Seu Jorge and Beck

A remix of Beck‘s song “Tropicalia” with the Brazilian singer Seu Jorge appeared on the second Red Hot + Rio compilation, which was released in 2011 to benefit HIV/AIDS awareness and prevention.

Caetano Veloso and David Byrne

The Brazilian superstar Caetano Veloso played a concert with David Byrne at Carnegie Hall in 2014. They mostly performed Veloso’s music, along with this Talking Heads classic, “(Nothing But) Flowers”.

Vinicius Cantuária and Bill Frisell

The renowned guitarist Bill Frisell and the Brazilian singer-songwriter Vinicius Cantuária finish each other’s musical sentences on the 2011 album Lágrimas Mexicanas, which features Cantuária’s gorgeous compositions. The two performed “Calle 7” live on WNYC’s Soundcheck.

Gilberto Gil and Jimmy Cliff

There’s no question as to Bob Marley’s influence throughout the world — and certainly in Brazil. Here, the Jamaican reggae star Jimmy Cliff and Brazil’s musical ambassador Gilberto Gil pay tribute to Marley with “No Woman No Cry”.

Luis Bonfa and Perry Como

This video is from 1963, when the bossa nova craze was heating up in the U.S. It’s a wonderful document: Como sheepishly confesses that he doesn’t speak “Brazilian,” and Bonfa zings him back a moment later. (I also recommend this great Smithsonian Folkways reissue of the guitarist’s solo work, recorded in 1958.)

Olodum and Michael Jackson

Michael Jackson and director Spike Lee had to go to court in Rio to be allowed to shoot this video in the Dona Marta favela — but the residents didn’t seem to have a problem. The power of the drum corps Olodum helps convey Jackson’s message as they all dance through the streets of Salvador, the group’s hometown.

Let’s block ads! (Why?)

The central equation behind Slavic Soul Party! is self-explanatory: an American black-music spin on the Balkan brass band. The net product is akin to a New-Orleans-style brass band, but with different percussion timbres, horn trills and glissandi. (Also, accordion, because Europe.) It’s the sort of multiculti collision you see forged in major population centers; you may be interested to know the band has a standing Tuesday night gig at a Brooklyn bar which specializes in international music.

The band’s upcoming release adds more stamps to its passport, by proxy — it’s a full re-arrangement of Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn‘s late-career masterpiece The Far East Suite, an LP inspired by a trip to the Middle East and South Asia. (“Far East” is a bit of a misnomer.) The cry of an Indian mynah bird birthed the clarinet melody you hear on “Bluebird Of Delhi.” Ellington and Strayhorn then filled in the brooding bass line, the secondary theme and a relaxed swing beat.

It’s great source material to start with, but what Slavic Soul Party! does with it is the neato trick to watch out for. The bass line becomes an ominous brass blast over which a trumpet blares and folky percussion rumbles (Chris Stromquist on snare, bandleader Matt Moran on a bass-drum-like instrument). Instead of classic big-band swing, parade funk switches on instantly, the high of a lithe clarinet (Peter Hess) against the low of active tuba bass (Ron Caswell). The climax and denouement are almost the same — so as not to mess with a good thing — though the act of reimagination in multiple dialects at once ensures a much different path to its arrival.

In spite of all that’s going on, it totally works. Alternatively, because of everything that goes on, the total package works.

Slavic Soul Party! Plays Duke Ellington’s Far East Suite comes out Sept. 16 via Ropeadope.

Let’s block ads! (Why?)

Let’s block ads! (Why?)

Imarhan is a crew of young musicians from Tamanrasset in southern Algeria. The band has a direct family relationship with Tuareg rock trailblazers Tinariwen: Not only is one of Tinariwen’s members, Eyadou Ag Leche, a cousin of Imarhan’s frontman, but he also has production and co-writing credits on the younger band’s new album.

Imarhan integrates the hypnotic riffs and relentless percussion of traditional Tuareg music with modern elements to create something fresh, as you can hear on “Tarha Tadagh.”

Set List

• “Tarha Tadagh”

Photo: Brian Lowe/KCRW

Let’s block ads! (Why?)

With the Olympics beginning soon, we’re all probably about to hear a lot of bossa nova and samba. But let’s head instead to Paraiba, in Brazil’s Northeast, for the band Cabruêra and their wistful song “Beira Mar” (Seashore), in which they layer rock with percussion and accordion that bear a local accent. This animated video, with its trippy concept and supersaturated color scheme, is just dazzling.

And if you’re in New York this coming weekend, you can catch Cabruêra during the Brasil Summerfest — just in time to get you in the mood for Rio 2016.

Sometimes, all you need in the summer is a song that transports you somewhere else — and “Palermo Hollywood” by French singer/songwriter (and actor and record producer) Benjamin Biolay provides just that thing. Hardly a newcomer, Biolay likes to immerse himself in a particular theme or soundscape for each project. For his latest, he takes listeners to Buenos Aires, whose Palermo Hollywood neighborhood provided the name for both his latest album and its title track.

Some of the other songs on “Palermo Hollywood” bend more toward Latin inspiration, including several tunes co-written with Uruguayan/Argentine musician and actress Sofia Wilhelmi. The title song, however, is a melange of ideas and influences, between Biolay’s darkly Serge Gainsbourgian vocals, a gritty bass guitar riff and lush strings.

The next Sia or Rihanna? That’s how singer Era Istrefi is being pitched to an international audience. With more than 119 million page views as of now on YouTube, her smash “Bonbon” — sung mostly in Albanian — came to the attention of Ultra Music, and the label has been busy having her remake the song in English and German as well. But Istrefi, a Kosovar Albanian, isn’t the only pop star right now who speaks (at least some) Shqip; Rita Ora‘s family left Kosovo when she was a baby.

As with some of Istrefi’s earlier regional hits, like the reggae-soaked “Mani për Money” (Crazy for Money) — which features patois-style lyrics that some may well find startling and even objectionable, especially coming out of Istrefi’s mouth — the dancehall-based “Bonbon” owes a significant debt to Caribbean music.

I’ve had my eyes and ears on the Korean group Jambinai for a few years now. Their mix of traditional Korean instruments and an aesthetic steeped in noise, metal and hardcore is incredibly intense and bracingly new. And their driving, pummeling energy is in plain view on their new album, A Hermitage, and on this song, “They Keep Silence.” It’s post-rock by way of Eunyong Sim’s geomungo (a long zither), Bomi Kim’s haegum (a bowed fiddle) and vocals and guitar by Ilwoo Lee (who also plays a traditional Korean bamboo flute called a piri on the album), rounded out by bass and drums, played respectively by Jihoon Ok and Jae Hyuk Choi.

As Lee recently told Vice, the inspiration for “They Keep Silence” is an expressly angry response to the Sewol ferry disaster in 2014, in which 304 people died. “The people in the government did wrong,” Lee said, “and those who know are keeping silent about it.”

Finally, one more pick that features a very sweet moment in a summer when tempers are at a boil. When the Haitian band Lakou Mizik, now touring the U.S., got stuck on a flight out of Chicago that was delayed for nearly six hours, they decided to serenade the other passengers. Not only did their fellow travelers respond to their impromptu gig with cheers, but the Facebook version of their video has been picked up by outlets from Mashable to ABC.

Lakou Mizik has a strong sense of community in any setting. This nine-member group, ranging in age from their 20s to late 60s, came together in the aftermath of the 2010 earthquake that devastated Haiti.

Let’s block ads! (Why?)

It’s been about a month since Amjad Sabri’s voice was silenced. He was shot dead in his home city of Karachi by two men on a motorcycle, and his millions of fans are still in shock and anger.

So are his family. Sabri’s oldest brother, Sarwat, hopes the police will soon arrest the culprits. He has many questions for his brother’s killer: “Why did you do it? Are you doing it for God? For evil? Or for a man? For money? And he has to give the answer to the whole nation — not only the nation, the whole world now, because the whole world is listening.”

Qawwali is what made Amjad Sabri world-famous. It’s devotional music linked with Sufism, a mystical variant of Islam deeply entwined with the traditions of South Asia.

Sabri was a brilliant performer and a pioneer. At his family home in the back streets of Karachi, visitors still flood in every day to pay their condolences. An entire wall is devoted to a portrait of Amjad’s father, also a legendary qawwali singer.

We’re met by Amjad’s brothers, including Talha Fareed, who performed alongside Amjad for many years.

“He was like my father,” Talha says. “I am still in shock. I feel as if he is coming in here. I feel he is just coming.”

Relatives have come from far and wide. “We are proud that we were related to him,” says Mohammad Taha, 15, who flew in from his home in London to mourn his Uncle Amjad. “We are proud to be his family. The thing I don’t get is, who would want to hate him? He loved the world, the world loved him. But there is always a hater. Where there’s friends, there’s always enemies as well.”

Those enemies include the Taliban. For years now, the Taliban and other Islamist fundamentalists have fought a war against music. In Pakistan, they’ve burned down CD shops and attacked musicians. Soon after Sabri was shot, a splinter group of the Pakistani Taliban took responsibility. Sabri’s family aren’t sure that’s true, yet there’s no doubt their form of Sufi Islam, with its emphasis on spreading faith through music, is anathema to hardline Islamists like the Taliban.

His brother Sarwat says their faith is all about tolerance. “Our message is for humanity,” he says. “It is not for one sect. It is not for one religion. It is for the all human.”

Then, as we’re sitting and talking, something strange happens. The Sabri family starts singing. We didn’t ask them to; it was spontaneous. Amjad’s brother, Azmat, starts; his younger brother Talha Fareed joins him for a duet; and then it’s Amjad’s uncle Mehmood’s turn.

There is a message behind this. Amjad’s home is a house of mourning right now, but it will always be a house of music that will not be silenced by violence. The next generation of Sabris also don’t seem scared.

Amjad’s sons and nephews are busy learning qawwali, according to Sarwat. “How many of them are learning to sing? All of them!,” he says. “And all of them are very talented!”

Twelve year-old Bilawal Sabri, singing one of his Uncle Amjad’s songs, is happy to prove that point.

Let’s block ads! (Why?)

Colombian writer Gabriel García Márquez once said that One Hundred Years of Solitude was a 400-page Vallenato: a traditional music of Colombia’s Caribbean coast. The songs are mini-epics, filled with local characters and poetry. It’s a style that stretches back 200 years and is still thriving today.

At high noon in Valledupar, the capital of Vallenato, a traditional trio takes the stage. The occasion is the Vallenato Festival, which has been held in the city that gives the music its name for almost half a century. Its goal is to promote the traditional elements of the style, which is played on three instruments: caja, or drum, guacharaca, or scraper, and the diatonic accordion.

In addition to a competition, the festival includes daily concerts held in a 25,000-seat amphitheater. Among the headliners this year was superstar singer Carlos Vives, who helped popularize Vallenato around the world in the early 1990s.

“For me, Vallenato is connected to the countryside, to the cattle rancher, to the farmer,” Vives says. “That’s Vallenato. And then there’s us, the new generation who have reinvented it. But when I talk about Vallenato, we have to remember the ‘minstrels.'”

The minstrels go back to the early 1800s, when troubadours traveled from town to town, singing songs about local and regional news.

“Back in the day, the news was spread through songs,” says Tomás Dario Gutiérrez, a Vallenato historian and composer. “News that today could be transmitted in a matter of seconds — for instance, an epidemic.”

In One Hundred Years of Solitude, one of the main characters learns of her mother’s death through a famous Vallenato accordionist named “Francisco el Hombre,” inspired by a real-life minstrel.

Gutiérrez says people may think García Márquez wrote about a fantasy world in his novel.

“No, no,” Gutierrez says. “He takes the history, the social and cultural reality of our people and runs it through the sieve of fantasy and creates that monumental work. Many times, the same phenomenon happens in Vallenato songs. For instance, the song called ‘The House in the Air’: ‘I’m going to make you a house in the air.’ It’s the same thing!”

The song tells the story of a man who wants to build a home for his daughter up in the air to protect her from unwanted suitors, so that only the one who can “reach that high” can win her hand.

Up until the late 1800s, Vallenato was played on indigenous Colombian flutes called gaitas. When the accordion came to Colombia from Germany in the mid-1800s, it became the primary voice playing four distinct “airs” or rhythms: paseo, merengue, son and puya.

Last December, UNESCO declared Vallenato “intangible heritage, in need of safeguarding.” Efraín Quintero, vice-president of the Vallenato Legend Foundation, says that acknowledgment brings with it a big responsibility.

“To promote and support music that does not stray from the melodic and literary structures of traditional Vallenato,” Quintero says. “That said, I’m a firm believer that we have to evolve, we can’t restrict or stigmatize new musicians. We just have to make sure that they have all the necessary elements of traditional music and, based on that, create new work.”

The Vallenato Festival recognized accordionist Emiliano Zuleta and his brother, singer Poncho Zuleta, for their efforts to preserve the music.

“We must follow the rules and parameters of traditional Vallenato, to conserve its essence,” Zuleta says. “That’s the work we do and the recommendation we make to new generations, so they don’t distort the truth about Vallenato.”

Carlos Vives agrees. It’s important to continue recording Vallenato and to encourage younger musicians.

“It’s also important that minstrels continue to thrive, like Emiliano Zuleta, the elder, or Luis Enrique Martinez or Carlos Huertas,” Vives says. “Composers that were born free of the recording industry — who were not born to make records, but to carry messages from town to town.”

Let’s block ads! (Why?)

One of Pakistan’s best-known singers, Amjad Sabri, was gunned down Wednesday in the city of Karachi, in what police are calling a targeted killing.

The attack occurred when the 45-year-old Sabri was on his way to a television station, where he was scheduled to give a performance to mark the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

The TTP Hakimullah Mehsud group — aka the Pakistani Taliban — has claimed responsibility for Sabri’s death, saying that they carried out the assassination “for blasphemy.” If members of the Pakistani Taliban did carry out Sabri’s assassination, it would be the latest in a string of high-profile attacks; the group has also been accused of being the force behind the assassination of Pakistan’s former Prime Minister, Benazir Bhutto, in 2007, as well as the infamous shooting of schoolgirl Malala Yousafzai in 2012.

According to reports in the Pakistani press, two men riding a motorcycle fired shots at Sabri’s car. The singer was shot five times, including in the head. On Thursday, thousands of people gathered in Karachi, to throw rose petals at the ambulance that contained the singer’s coffin and to cluster near his home.

There are also reports that Amjad Sabri’s brother was in the car with him, and was wounded in the attack.

The richly baritoned Sabri was part of one of South Asia’s most celebrated singing families. His late father, Ghulam Farid Sabri, and late uncle, Maqbool Sabri, were known together as The Sabri Brothers. The family specializes in the art of qawwali — an important Muslim devotional tradition. Like his ancestors, Amjad Sabri spent his life singing praises to God and the Prophet Muhammad.

Qawwali is a tradition that has lasted about 700 years in South Asia — home to about a third of the world’s Muslim population — going from Persia into what is now India and Pakistan. It is, for its performers and audiences, a conduit for experiencing the divine.

In South Asia, qawwali is also one of the most popular and relatable expressions of Islam and of Sufism — the hugely diverse, mystical branch of Islam that emphasizes having a personal connection to God, as well as embracing tolerance, peace and equality.

In many areas of the world, local forms of Sufism incorporate other religious philosophies and practices as well as regional cultural references. For example, Sufi shrines in South Asia regularly draw not just Muslim devotees, but Hindus, Christians, Sikhs and others — which has in recent years made them a particular target for terrorist violence. Some qawwali songs explicitly reference religious pluralism and tolerance. That’s worlds away from the ideological goals of the TTP and their allies.

As journalist Murtaza Hussain said in a piece by Haroon Moghul published yesterday by the Washington Post, qawwali was “distinctively Pakistani and was our own unique expression of Islam. That’s why this killing really strikes at the heart and soul of Pakistan.”

Some qawwali songs praise God directly, or the prophet Muhammad, or Ali (who became the first imam of the Shiite branch of Islam), or one of the Sufi saints. Other songs describe the poet’s longing for God — very often expressed in what seems, on the surface, to be a secular love song.

Qawwali draws upon North Indian classical music — a musical style that evolved within an expressly Hindu context — but is also uniquely its own, with call-and-response choruses as well as handclaps and drumbeats that are meant to evoke the human heartbeat. The songs build slowly in speed and intensity, swelling up to ecstatic heights. Listeners are swept up in that lyrical and musical potency, dancing, clapping and singing along. Qawwali is very much a communal experience that can last for hours.

Historically, the qawwali tradition is passed down by male family members from one generation to the next; Amjad Sabri was the only one among his siblings to lead his family’s party, or group.

Mindful of that legacy, Sabri sought to preserve his family’s traditions in his work. He was particularly renowned for performing a song associated with his father and uncle called “Bhar Do Jholi Meri” (“Fill My Bag”):

But his elders were also well-known for experimenting and updating tradition. In the mid-1990s, The Sabri Brothers released “Ya Mustapha,” on the American label Xenophile, which paired this qawwali party’s soulful singing with saxophones. The young Amjad Sabri sings in the chorus of this recording.

Sabri also reached out to audiences through the big screen. He appeared in the 2008 Bollywood drama Halla Bol (“Raise Your Voice”).

The Sabri family’s own history in qawwali goes back centuries. The family claims (though it has been contested) that they are descended from Mian Tansen, a legendary court musician in the service of the Mughal emperor Akbar the Great, who spread his empire across almost all of the Indian subcontinent in the late 16th century, and whose patronage of the arts and literature were at the heart of a unique Mughal culture.

Great qawwals, or singers who specialize in qawwali, are beloved across the South Asian subcontinent and across the globe by fans from all kinds of religious and secular backgrounds. Like the internationally known titan of qawwali, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, the Sabri Brothers recorded for Peter Gabriel’s Real World label. (I’ve been listening to and writing about qawwali, and interviewing prominent qawwals, for more than two decades; the Sabri family has long been a fixture in my own insatiable qawwali obsession.)

In 2014, Amjad Sabri was named in a blasphemy case in Pakistan, after he had gone on a morning talk show to sing; the qawwali he had chosen to perform reportedly referenced members of the prophet Muhammad’s family. The television channel and the show’s anchors, along with the song’s lyricist, were also named in the suit.

Asghari Begum, Amjad Sabri’s mother, told Al Jazeera that approximately six months ago, three men burst open the front door of the family’s residence, then left after realizing that the singer was not at home.

According to the Pakistani newspaper Dawn, Sabri leaves behind a widow and five children; his oldest boy is 12 years old. Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif announced on Thursday that the government would grant Sabri’s immediate family 10 million rupees (about $95,000) of financial support, along with covering the children’s educational expenses. In his statement, Sharif said that Sabri’s death came “at the hands of coward terrorists.”

Sabri’s assassination has apparently left other Muslim artists in Pakistan vulnerable. On Thursday, Farhan Ali Waris — who specializes in Shiite religious recitations and was a friend of Amjad Sabri — says that he was shot at in a nearby neighborhood, a few hours after Sabri was attacked.

And among the outpourings of grief and tributes to Amjad Sabri online was this Facebook note from the brothers Mehr Ali and Sher Ali, another great qawwali brother duo: “Hands are shivering.”

Let’s block ads! (Why?)

Born in Sao Paolo and now living in Los Angeles, singer Carla Hassett finds musical inspiration in each place she’s called home. Hassett, who toured with Sergio Mendes and Billy Idol and lent her voice to the soundtracks of the Rio movies, has a new solo album called +Blue (pronounced “more blue”). It’s American and Brazilian with a modern twist, Hassett says: For instance, she sets Carmen Miranda’s “South American Way” in a minor key and swaps the original’s pep for a sultry summer swing.

The album takes its name from Brazilian singer Caetano Veloso’s “A Little More Blue.” Hassett, who worked with Veloso in 2012, considers him the “catalyst” for her project. In 1971, Veloso recorded his third self-titled album in London while living in exile, far from his family.

“I began to identify with it — not that I’ve ever been a political exile, but I understand that longing,” says Hassett, who grew up traveling back and forth between Brazil. “Being away from them was hard as it was joyful when I was reunited with them. “It’s strange way to grow up, but at the end of the day it’s also really enriching.”

Hear her full interview with NPR’s Linda Wertheimer at the audio link.

Let’s block ads! (Why?)

When we invited the band Mashrou’ Leila to come play at the Tiny Desk, we couldn’t have foreseen the timing.

The group arrived at our office the morning after the horrific June 12 shootings in Orlando at the gay nightclub Pulse. We were all collectively reeling from the news, and for this rock band from Beirut, Lebanon, the attack hung very heavily.

Mashrou’ Leila is fronted by singer and lyricist Hamed Sinno, along with violinist Haig Papazian, keyboardist and guitarist Firas Abou Fakher, Ibrahim Badr on bass and drummer Carl Gerges: five young Beirutis whose family backgrounds reflect Lebanon’s religious diversity.

Sinno is openly gay, and Mashrou’ Leila is well acquainted with the targeting of LGBT people. The band has faced condemnation, bans and threats in its home region, including some from both Christian and Muslim sources, for what it calls “our political and religious beliefs and endorsement of gender equality and sexual freedom.” And yet, when Mashrou’ Leila performs in the U.S., its members are often tasked with representing the Middle East as a whole, being still one of the few Arab rock bands to book a North American tour.

After the attack on Pulse, the members of Mashrou’ Leila decided to open their Tiny Desk set with “Maghawir” (Commandos), a song Sinno wrote in response to two nightclub shootings in Beirut — a tragic parallel to what happened in Orlando. In the Beirut incidents, which took place within a week of each other, two of the young victims were out celebrating their respective birthdays. “Maghawir” is a checklist of sorts about how to spend a birthday clubbing in the band’s home city, but also a running commentary about machismo and the idea that big guns make big men.

“All the boys become men / Soldiers in the capital of the night,” Sinno sings. “Shoop, shoop, shot you down … We were just all together, painting the town / Where’d you disappear?” It was a terrible, and terribly fitting, response to the Florida shootings.

In all of its songs, Mashrou’ Leila creates densely knotted wordplay; even the band’s name has layers of meaning and resonance. The most common translation of “Mashrou’ Leila” is “The Night Project,” which tips to the group’s beginnings back in 2008 in sessions at the American University of Beirut. But Leila is also the name of the protagonist in one of Arabic literature’s most famous tales, the tragic love story of Leila and Majnun, a couple somewhat akin to Romeo and Juliet. Considering Mashrou’ Leila’s hyper-literary bent, it’s hard not to hear that evocation.

In the second song, “Kalaam” (S/He), Sinno dives deep into the relationships between language and gender, and how language shapes perception and identity: “They wrote the country’s borders upon my body, upon your body / In flesh-ligatured word / My word upon your word, as my body upon your body / Flesh-conjugated words.” (The band has posted its own full English translations of these songs online.)

The title of the third song in Mashrou’ Leila’s set, “Djin,” is a perfect distillation of that linguistic playfulness. In pre-Islamic Arabia and later in Islamic theology and texts, a djin (or jinn) is a supernatural creature; but here, Sinno also means gin, as in the alcoholic drink. “Liver baptized in gin,” Sinno sings, “I dance to ward off the djin.”

But you don’t have to speak a word of Arabic, or get Mashrou’ Leila’s cerebral references, to appreciate its songs: deeply layered, darkly textured and sonically innovative. And sometimes, as Sinno says, the band’s songs “are just about getting really messed up at a bar.”

Ibn El Leil (Son Of The Night) is available now. (iTunes) (Amazon)

Set List

• “Maghawir” (Commandos)
• “Kalaam” (S/He)
• “Djin”

Credits

Producers: Anastasia Tsioulcas, Niki Walker; Audio Engineer: Josh Rogosin; Videographers: Niki Walker, Claire Hannah Collins, Kara Frame; Production Assistant: Sophie Kemp; Photo: Ruby Wallau/NPR.

For more Tiny Desk concerts, subscribe to our podcast.

Let’s block ads! (Why?)