NPR : World Cafe

Filed Under:

World Cafe Looks Back: World Music

March 26, 2012
comments

Throughout the month of October, we celebrated the 20th anniversary of World Cafe and revisited some of the best and most memorable interviews of the past 20 years.

On today's World Cafe, we look to Nigeria, Benin and Cuba and highlight some of our favorite conversations with world-music innovators.

King Sunny Ade visited World Cafe in 2005 to talk about Juju music from Nigeria — a lilting style of guitar- and percussion-based dance music — and describe how this almost turned him into the "African Bob Marley."

Iconic and inspiring, Benin-born Angélique Kidjo discusses the impact of the African Diaspora on world music, her trilogy of albums exploring the movement of African musical traditions to the Americas, and her work with Dave Matthews on a track for her 2002 album Black Ivory Soul.

After years of collaborating and touring with his band The Flecktones, banjo guru Bela Fleck sought to explore the roots of his beloved instrument in Africa. He recounts the result of his travels — the album and documentary Throw Down Your Heart — in this excerpt from a 2009 session.

In 1996, Buena Vista Social Club helped expose the golden age of Cuban local music to the world. The album's producer, Ry Cooder, came to World Cafe in 1998 to discuss the role of music as a source of cultural identity in Cuba, and to describe how he navigated this project amid the Cuban recording environment.

This segment originally aired on October 19, 2011.

Copyright 2012 WXPN-FM. To see more, visit http://www.xpn.org/.

Arts & Culture

NPR

Styling The NBA

Basketball star Carmelo Anthony is known off the court for his signature fashion flare. Host Michel Martin speaks with his stylist, Khalilah Williams-Webb, about what goes into dressing Anthony and other high-profile clients.

Food

NPR

How Genomics Solved The Mystery Of Ireland's Great Famine

Although scientists have known that a funguslike organism caused the potato blight that triggered the Great Famine in Ireland in the 1840s, they didn't know which strain was the culprit. But they do now, thanks to the genes in some 19th century potato samples.

Politics

NPR

Libya 'Talking Points' Emails Put Petraeus Back In Spotlight

The role former CIA Director David Petraeus played in creating the discredited U.S. "talking points" about the violence in Benghazi, Libya, that left four Americans dead, including a U.S. ambassador, last year is under new scrutiny, as a Washington Post story suggests that Petraeus sought to shape the resulting memo to favor his agency.

Technology

NPR

Apple CEO Defends Tax Practices At Senate Hearing

Apple CEO Tim Cook faced tough questions on Capitol Hill on Tuesday. He defended a tax strategy that allows Apple to avoid taxes on tens of billions of dollars of profits. Cook also called on the Congress to lower the U.S. corporate tax rate.

Leave a Comment

Help keep the conversation civil. Please refer to our Terms of Use and Code of Conduct before posting your comments.