Sometimes it’s a blessing not to get the language. But Chao, Amparanoia, and Spook & the Guay all mix their tongues up. Singing in their own language or a regional dialect was crucial to staunch Basque nationalist Fermin Muguruza and Italy’s Almamegretta. Regional factors come into play, too-Zebda and Spook & the Guay emerged from Toulouse in southwest France but only leaped to national standing after catching the ears of Paris-centric media and labels with gigs at the “Springtime in Bourges” festival. On the safe European home front, the music industry-as-industry reigns supreme, perfectly content to import Anglo-American stars and cult heroes, and push their own tepid mainstream pop and rock idols. In the English-language sphere, they run up against the long-standing conviction you can only rock in English to world music ethno-purists, though, the music is still way too rowdy and bastardized. It’s no stretch for me to view Ozomatli, Asian Dub Foundation, Chico Science, the Neapolitan melody meets On-U Sound dub science of Almamegretta, or first-wave Latin Alternative bands Maldita Vecindad or Todos Tus Muertos as global counterparts of recent Mediterranean-rim rock.īut even focusing along the rim, where do you draw the line? French raggamuffin and hip-hop? The fledgling Spanish hip-hop scene, or Barcelona bands like Dusminguet and Macaco? The hand percussion brotherhood linking the Berber-reggae Gnawa Diffusion, Ojos de Brujo’s Catalan rumba, and the irreverent flamenco-billy of Mártires del Compás? Rachid Taha’s arena-rockin’ rai or the Aisha Kandisha dub/techno crew? Any one of these could fit under the umbrella and open up another who/where/when/why/what Pandora’s box of history and influences.īut the ones who count all started out as pariahs. It’s strictly personal, and that extends to the groups I’ll discuss here-you make your own connections based on what you like and what you’ve been able to hear. The cauldron bubbles under and over with rock, reggae, dub, punk, ska, James Brown funk, ragga, rai, Latin, hip-hop, techno-to be adapted in distinctly individual and constantly shifting proportions. Listen globally, but flavor locally with differing doses of common spices-depending on what you like, who you are, and what’s going on around you.
The best metaphor for the Mediterranean mix may come from post-tropicalia Brazil-Chico Science and Naçao Zumbi’s satellite dish in a mangrove-swamp mangue-beat logo. Born in the era when Jamaican riddims anchored the international youth music underground, one crucial element is a rhythmic vitality largely missing from U.S. Strongly anti-racist, internationalist, and pro-immigrant, it’s the soundtrack for urban youth living on the Euro-immigration, anti-globalization front line. It’s been called mestizaje after Mano Negra’s hell-for-leather patchanka charge, but many reject that as too limiting a title for a far-from-monolithic phenomenon. What goes on musically in France, Spain, and Italy passes undetected on the radar screen of the dominant U.S.-Anglo pop world, short of a freak trend breakout à la Paris house or Daft Punk/Air pop. Manu Chao may be an anomalous ripple breaking the surface of the Anglo music world, but the Energizer Bunny skankster is riding the crest of a wave that’s been developing for more than a decade in southern Europe-not that anyone outside the Mediterranean rim really got a chance to hear it grow.
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