A BLEND OF MUSICS OF THE WORLD

Asia
Also stirring up the world music pot is Indian-by-way-of-England singer Sheila Chandra. Her hit with Monsoon, "Ever So Lonely," sold a quarter of a million copies worldwide with its electronic weaving of Hindi keening (in English, however) with the drum machines and other electronically simulated elements of tin-pan Caribbean rhythms. Chandra went on without Monsoon to create a fusion of Gregorian-meets-Hindi style chants, Appalachian Scotch-Irish music and electronica for a sound that took off globally, especially after Jean-Paul Gaultier used her "Sacred Stones" for one of his mid-1990s runway shows featuring his mehandi-inspired collection.

Electronica is, of course, full to bursting with the influence of Eastern music. Sasha's latest album, to mention one, features a remix of "Dorset Perception," a trippy, shamanistic tune with a French/Italian/Portuguese refrain set to Indian beats, from Shpongle, the collaboration between grandfather psychedelic trance producer Raja Ram and Hallucinogen's Simon Posford.

Latin America and the Caribbean
Obviously anyone who's been awake even briefly during the past five years is aware of the incredible explosion of crossover Latin pop in the United States. Still, the real phenomenon is not how many Latin stars have earned their stripes, but how pervasive the sound itself is all over the world. Alejandro Sanz, who has never sung a word in English, just won the World Music Award for bestselling Latin artist of 2004. Beyond that, it's safe to say that there is nothing going on in today's hip-hop, dance music, electronica landscape that has not been directly or indirectly influenced by Latin and Caribbean music - which has itself, in almost all cases, been influenced by American jazz or big band.

Let's consider, for example, the one element without which we wouldn't have today's dance music: the dub. This technique of instrumental remixing was created in Jamaica by Osbourne Ruddock, an electronics engineer and music lover who got his sound system to do echoes, delays and reverbs...and who once accidentally left the vocal track off one of his remixes. And voilà - electronic dance music. What Jamaicans at the time were mixing, however, was not merely their own indigenous ska and reggae, but also big band and R&B music of the 1950s that they brought back from the States, music that later evolved into Jamaica's "dance hall" sound.

Other examples of the blending and reblending of American and Caribbean sounds abound. In the Dominican Republic, the populist merengue music began as the purest expression of Dominican culture. (Actually, dictator Rafael Trujillo "encouraged" his citizens to adopt this music for all occasions, but that's another story.)  Basically it's played on homemade instruments, and has evolved into a whole new sound with the addition not only of saxophone, conga drums and electric bass, but also the influence of the jazz records the Marines brought with them when they were stationed on the island. Today, groups like the New York-based Fulanito and boy band Los Ilegales continue to expand the dimensions of merengue by fusing it with hip-hop, rap, house music and techno, while the undisputed master of merengue and three-time Latin Grammy winner Juan Luis Guerra rocks out with his original style of "bachata-merengue," which is the quick jolts of the perico ripiao old-school merengue style with his own guitar playing.

Brazil in the 1950s, too, was influenced by American jazz, as artists like Antonio Carlos Jobim and João Gilberto fused Brazilian samba with cool jazz to create a "new thing,"� or bossa nova. Nowadays, João's daughter, Bebel Gilberto, is enjoying great success as a solo artist.  She is also collaborating with masters of world music appropriation, DJs, and producers Thievery Corporation, whose Babylon Rewind was just released  in November). Like their fellow D.C. natives Deep Dish, Thievery Corporation takes advantage of the diverse world sounds available in the nightclubs of the capital city. And Thievery Corporation is now also promoting a guitarist who promises to be the next big Argentinean thing, Federico Aubele, just coming off his North American tour. Aubele's sound blends reggae, bossa nova and Latin hip-hop, with inspiration from his own obsession with 1970s bands like The Kinks and The Ramones.

Brazil isn't all bossa nova, however. The underground sound of the favelas in the hills above Rio (think City of God) is "Rio funk," a blend of hard-edged Miami bass and Brazilian gangsta rap. This music first got a global listen in the form of Tejo, Black Alien and Speed's "Quem Que Caguëtou,"  thanks to Fatboy Slim and a Nissan commercial.

Africa
Jazz, hip-hop, Afro-Caribbean beats, electronica - all hark back to the continent of Africa. It's certainly not news to anyone that much of today's Western music has its roots in the African rhythms that enslaved Africans brought to the Americas and reinterpreted through the lens of dislocation, from the tribal rhythms of early rock 'n' roll, to the syncopated beats of hyperproduced gems like Usher's "Yeah," to the smooth sounds of blanched-out elevator jazz.

These days, the most popular music coming out of Africa is a blend of the musics of the world. Benin-born Angélique Kidjo, for example, continues to enjoy a tremendously popular career with a repertoire that encompasses elements of salsa, bolero, meringue, calypso, ska, funk, gospel, zouk, rumba and jazz, sung in either her native Fon, in French, or in English. Her rendition of Gershwin's "Summertime," for example, is sung in her native tongue and is so startling a return to the roots of jazz that it nearly seems to transcend the genre altogether. Also very much into the mix of world musics is Senegal's Youssou N'Dour, who first came to worldwide, or rather, Western attention with his now 10-year-old hit duet with Neneh Cherry, "Seven Seconds." (Cherry herself released an album of self-produced DJ music that came out in late 2004.) N'Dour mixes Senegalese Mbalax, already a mélange of pop, rock, jazz, and traditional Senegalese grooves, with samba, hip-hop, jazz, and soul, as well as collaborating on various projects with the likes of Peter Gabriel and Sting.

And while some purists may deplore the "exploitation" of various musics and cultures - for example, the flak that Paul Simon got for introducing South African group Ladysmith Black Mambazo to the West - the truth about world music is that it's a constantly interconnecting series of circles within circles. Every musical style borrows from others, is reworked, and then returned to the global stew to be borrowed again.