Word: singers
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Fassie has been shocking people all her life. When she was born in 1964, her surprised family was expecting a boy, so Fassie's mother, casting about for a name, borrowed one from U.S. country singer Brenda Lee. By her fifth birthday, Fassie was already earning money by singing for tourists. As a teen, she landed gigs with popular acts and got on the charts with a single, Weekend Special, which received international air play. Fassie's 1980s efforts--bubble-gum pop sung mainly in English--were musically unremarkable. But young South Africans loved the lyrics of songs like...
...music is traditionally an individual's complaint about the surrounding society. Standing on a street in Lagos or on a beach in Brazil, or staring down an invading army of Pokemon and Britneys, however, it can be equally as radical to speak out for your society. To a protest singer in Mali or Haiti, is the target a government that stifles personal freedoms or a global juggernaut that threatens local traditions and economic autonomy? Is the oppressor the state, which might jail you for playing your music, or Western entertainment conglomerates, which can so thoroughly marginalize your music that...
...took a trans-Indian-Oceanic pilgrimage to Sulawesi, the Indonesian home island of the first settlers of Madagascar, in search of the roots of their roots. The mesmerizing result, Soul Makassar, aims to transcend the local and the global, melding guitar and organ with traditional string instruments. On Aretina, singer Rasoanaivo Hanitrarivo bemoans finding many Sulawesi people ashamed of their own music, preferring Western pop: "You can hear something different/But it is hidden and not played with pride...
Aterciopelados COLOMBIA Singer Andrea Echeverri and guitarist/producer Hector Buitrago blend alt-rock, electronica and Colombian folk. Key albums: Gozo Poderoso, Caribe Atomico...
Brilliant Green JAPAN A rock-'n'-roll trio--singer Tomoko Kawase and guitarists Shunsaku Okuda and Ryo Matsui--that creates ambiguously playful music. Key album: Los Angeles...