WorldMusic.NationalGeographic.com now offers consumers the soundtrack of the world, from traditional roots music to unexpected hybrids from the furthest reaches of the globe. This groundbreaking, comprehensive world music Web site brings media-rich features, breaking music news and celebrity DJ playlists to the broadest audience possible.

Site officially launches on July 17, 2006.


Featuring Compelling Stories & Music:

Tuareg nomads trade in guns for guitars. Tinariwen — a band made up of Kel Tamashek or Tuareg people from the Sahara Desert — learned Bob Marley tunes while training in Khadaffi's camps. Once they realized Khadaffi was not going to take up the cause of the Tuareg nomads, who sought independence from the French and then the Malian government, the band members left. Tinariwen transposed traditional melodies and trance-like rhythms onto electric guitars. The band’s music was passed from camel to taxi via cassette and became the soundtrack of the Kel Tamashek independence movement. Folklore has it that a previous member of Tinariwen was seen riding into battle with a AK47 in his hands and a guitar on his back.

Escaped African slaves play turtle shells. In 1635 Spanish ships carrying kidnapped Africans wrecked in the Eastern Caribbean near the island of St. Vincent. Survivors swam ashore and took refuge among the indigenous Carib people, who absorbed the escapees. These Afro-Caribbean people were called Garífuna and they produced a musical tradition combining powerful vocals with a dense percussive base, including the use of a percussion instrument made of turtle shells. Later, they were forced to flee to the Central American shoreline, from Nicaragua to Belize.

Basque radical unites with Latin American rebels. Fermin Muguruza sings and raps in Euskara, the Basque language, which is Europe’s oldest language. His punk and ska attitude has become a bridge with some of Latin America’s most vocal punk bands. One track features fellow border-crosser Manu Chao. Another song calls for a Basque-Mapuche dictionary. The Mapuche were one of the few indigenous people in Latin America never conquered by the Spanish, because they covertly monitored the Spanish fighting method before defending themselves.

Home of Balkan brass band not on a map. You can search on a map, but you won't find Zece Prajini (literally “ten fields”), the Romanian home of Fanfare Ciocarlia. It’s a tiny village of 400 people, situated by the secluded border with Moldavia. The 12-piece ensemble of horn and percussion players led an isolated existence, part-time musicians playing for nearby weddings (sometimes for 30 hours), an orkestar (band) without any formal name. Fanfare Ciocarlia’s roots were in the brass bands of the Turkish military, a force that had occupied so many Balkan countries in the early 19th century. The Gypsies fitted the brass to their music, making them dance the horos and ruseascas, playing in complex time signatures at a jaw-dropping pace.

Coconut shells, tin cans, and divine love in Bengal and Bangladesh. Bauls du Bengale are traveling musicians and singers who spread their songs of divine love across the Bengali-speaking regions of eastern India and Bangladesh. The initiates took their inspiration from various spiritual sources that have crossed Bengal ever since the 11th century — tantric Buddhism, Sufism, Vishnuism — while still maintaining a strong sense of personal freedom. The Baul tradition has been passed down both orally and ancestrally. The Bauls generally live modest, rural lives. Their instruments are usually hand-made from coconut shells, gourds, bamboo and tin cans.

Additional Info
A World Remixed: Exclusive GeoRemix Tracks from National ...
GeoRemix Project ~ Track Descriptions
National Geographic World Music Channel Delivers Soundtrack of the ...
Fact Sheet: Compelling Stories
Sample Artists on the Site
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