Haitian roots music / Haiti From its home base at the Hotel Oloffson in Port-au-Prince, RAM has toured for more than 25 years, bringing Haiti’s rasin (a.k.a. Haitian roots music) to audiences around the world. The music is a stew of Vodou lyrics and instrumentation —...
Pan-Latin Dance Music / US Nosotros has been drawing music lovers to their distinctive Latin groove for over 20 years. What began as a guitar trio in 1994 quickly took on a life of its own, becom- ing one of the most recognizable and original Latin bands in the...
Ladino song / Spain, the Netherlands “What I like about writing in Ladino,” says Noam “Nani” Vazana, “is that when I look at the past, I see the future. They are intertwined and relevant and alive today” (Song- lines). She is one of the only artists in the world to...
Mariachi / Mexico Under the direction of Javier León, Mariachi Perla del Medio Oeste is an ensemble sponsored by the Indiana University Latin American Music Center at IU’s Jacobs School of Music. With more than a dozen players and singers, Perla del Medio Oeste...
Latin rock / US Making Movies blends pulsing Afro-Latino rhythms, psychedelic jams, and rock ’n’ roll swagger into powerful live performances. This Kansas City band punches out one high-energy song after another, crunching classic rock into Latin American rhythms —...
Cajun / US Ann Savoy, Jane Vidrine, Anya Burgess, and Lisa Trahan play Cajun French musicfrom southwest Louisiana — from dancehall Cajun to primitive Creole, from house music to front porch ballads — gleaned from a wealth of Cajun jewels found in their extensive...
Malawi groove music Madalitso Band is a duo from Malawi who performs utterly infectious music with unconventional homemade instruments: a 4-string acoustic guitar and foot drum, and a long-necked, banjo-like, one-stringed instrument called a babatone. The pair played...
Venezuela meets Appalachia Larry & Joe were destined to make music together. Larry Bellorín, a legend of Llanera music, hails from Monagas, Venezuela. Joe Troop is a GRAMMY-nominated bluegrass and Old-Time musician. Larry was forced into exile and is an asylum...
Afro-Colombian rhythms / Colombia This all-female percussionist group from Bogotá — Karen Forero, Giovanna Mo- gollón, and Diana Sanmiguel — mixes folk and Afro-Colombian rhythms with rap and beatboxing. In these musical traditions, men usually play percussion such as...
Cape Verdean / US Kavita Shah is an award-winning vocalist, composer, researcher, and educator deeply engaged with the jazz tradition. A lifelong New Yorker of Indian origin hailed for possessing an “amazing dexterity for musical languages” (NPR), Shah incorporates...