Latin Rap/Reggae

Los Vaqueros: El Regreso , Wisin & Yandel 2010

The second chapter of the Vaqueros saga is here, includes explosive new songs by Latin urban music's biggest duo WISIN & YANDEL as well as collaborations with 50 Cent, T-Pain, Sean Kingston, Tito El Bambino, Cosculluela, Jowell & Randy, Tego Calderon, Alexis & Fido, Franco El Gorilla and more.

Includes the first single "ZUN ZUN Rompiendo Caderas", a track that promises to take a hold of radio airwaves and dominate dance-floors throughout the world as well as the street single "No Dejemos Que Se Apague" feat. 50 Cent and T-Pain, an epic track that has the entire urban music scene buzzing.

In early 2011, the dynamic duo kicks off the international "El Regreso De Los Vaqueros" tour which will include spectacular performances of the new tracks by Wisin & Yandel as well as special invited guests throughout the US, Puerto Rico and beyond

Wisin & Yandel are nominated for 5 Premio Lo Nuestro awards including Artist of The Year, Urban Artist of the Year, Urban Album of the Year, Urban Song of the Year and Collaboration of the Year. The awards ceremony will be broadcast lvie on the Univision network in February.

The duo is one of Latin music's most dominant names, having 11 platinum and 8 gold selling albums as well as the most #1's on the Billboard Latin Rhythm Airplay Chart ever. They also hold the record for most #1's by a duo or group on the Billboard Hot Latin Songs Chart. (Machete Music)

Oyo, Angelique Kidjo 2010

Angelique Kidjo digs into her roots with her new Razor & Tie release, Oyo. Roots that reach far beyond her West African homeland of Benin, because Grammy Award winning singer,dancer and songwriter Kidjo is a definitive 21st century world artist. Her art roves across boundaries, genres and ethnicities, finding the connections that link musical forms from every part of the world,while still bonding closely with her own traditions.

The songs on Oyo,embrace rhythm & blues, soul music, jazz,and Beniese melodies,as well as four of her own original works. Featuring her unique interpretations of songs from artists as diverse as James Brown, Otis Redding,Miriam Makeba, and Santana and including guests John Legend,Bono, Roy Hargrove and Dianne Reeves. Oyo is a truly diverse collection reflecting the music that inspired Angelique growing up. Amazon

Bitte Orca, Dirty Projectors 2009

The follow-up to 2007's critically acclaimed and Domino debut "Rise Above". Their fifth release is a big rock album by design. Its idiosyncratic and sincere take on popular music is reminiscent of David Byrne with whom Dirty Projectors collaborated on "Knotty Pine" for the 2009 compilation "Dark Was The Night". In many ways, group leader David Longstreth could be seen as this generation's answer to Byrne, a distinctive torchbearer of labyrinthine song arrangements that go down easy. Amazon

A hypnotic triumph of last-ditch musicology. Mamane Barka is best known in his native Niger as a master of his country’s indigenous lute, the ngurumi. But his dream was to preserve the rapidly disappearing repertoire played on the huge five-stringed harp, the biram, an instrument exclusive to the Boudouma, a nomadic tribe of fishermen living along the banks of Lake Tchad. Considered a holy instrument, the biram richly evokes lakefront sounds, from fish jumping to the lapping of waves against the shore. It’s a quintessential country instrument. Happily, Barka was able to woodshed with the man reputed to be the last living biram virtuoso, Boukar Tar and then bring the songs to WOMAD in 2008 along with his percussionist friend Oumarou Adamou (who also plays on this album). In many respects, this cd, just released by World Music Network, is to 2009 what Hamza El Din’s Water Wheel was to 1969, potentially a highwater mark (pun intended) in world music recordings. Barka sings in the Boudouma language as well as in Hausa, Toubou and Kanuri, all languages spoken in Niger; the songs mix traditional material along with some of Barka’s own socially conscious compositions. (Lucid Culture)

N.A.S.A is an ongoing creative collaboration between two lifelong music aficionados, Squeak E. Clean ad DJ Zegon, and their friends, friends of friends and musical heroes. While N.A.S.A. stands for North America/South America and contains a number of superstar artists from both coasts of the US, it is about as far from a tension-building geographical showdown as a record can get. Rather, their Anti debut The Spirit of Apollo was born with the righteous goal of bringing people together through music and art, and that is exactly what masterminds Sam Spiegel (Squeak E. Clean) and Ze Gonzales (DJ Zegon) have done. Brazilian funk provides the roots of the songs and binds them together into a cohesive whole, but from there, the imagination behind The Spirit of Apollo ranges far and wide. Unexpected collaborations abound on the eighteen track release. Tom Waits growls over Kool Keith, Karen O taunts while Ol' Dirty Bastard gives shout-outs to Wu Tang and N.A.S.A from the grave, and David Byrne, Chuck D and others expound on the evils of "Money." In spite of the range of performers, the pairings seem organic, inspired and make perfect sense on the first listen, never coming off as ironic or impulsive. Vinyl contains digital download card for entire album. Amazon

Following seven years of near solid touring, Muse escalated from being the biggest band in Teignmouth in 1997 to one of the biggest bands in Europe by 2004. With each successive album, they pushed the musical envelope with a fusion of progressive rock, electronica, and Radiohead-influenced experimentation, creating an emotive, passionate sound. Muse's reputation as one of the best live rock bands in the world is well deserved with their exhilirating live performances drewing critical acclaim, industry buzz, and a loyal and rabid fan base. Amazon

It would take a lot for Vampire Weekend's debut to rise above the stench of privileged hype that surrounds it. A bunch of kids who formed the band in their Columbia dorm room borrow wholesale from Afrobeat and angular '80s stuff, and they quickly become an online buzz band before releasing a single album? Thankfully the record, and the band, are great fun: playful, pop-wise, and smart enough to pull their shtick off with aplomb. Organ and drums are often the focal point of the music, bringing to mind a goofier, happier Clinic (if that group's record-collecting habits were more scattershot). On the excellently named (and better sounding) "Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa," Vampire Weekend asks, "Does it feel so unnatural / To Peter Gabriel too?," immediately disarming--with self-aware brazenness--any criticism of their pomo/postcolonialist borrowing of "ethnic" music. It's clear that these dudes have not only inherited the nerd-rock omnivore's mantle from the Talking Heads, they've actually and already improved upon it. --Mike McGonigal

Find this CD in the Library's catalogue

Like her father before her, Anoushka Shankar is a musical eclectic experimenting with forms far beyond those of Indian classical music. Going even further than on her previous disc, Rise, Shankar, along with co-producer Karsh Kale, explores the meeting of electronica and India. "Burn" starts out as a romantic Bollywood theme before turning into a sultry soul tune with electronica beats, squiggly analog synths, and an impassioned vocal by Noah Lembersky. Shankar's sitar stutter glitches over a tabla-draped electronica rhythm on "Slither," courtesy of the Midival Punditz' Gaurav Raina. Guest singers appear on several tracks, including the ubiquitous Sting, who contributes his overly earnest voice to a power ballad called "Sea Dreamer." Shankar's sitar occasionally becomes a sidelight on her own album, leaping out for rock guitar-like breaks. She doesn't so much duet with Sting as accompany him. Her song for half-sister Norah Jones, on the other hand, integrates the singer's voice into a textural track of snaky sitar, as Jones mixes ethereal chorales and impassioned pleas. Much of Breathing Under Water recalls Bombay Dub Orchestra and their mixture of Bollywood strings, Indian musicians, and electronic grooves and textures. Both Kale and Shankar have writing credits on all but one composition, with their computer-concocted tracks often bridged by rhapsodic strings arranged by Bollywood composer Salim Merchant. His co-composition, "Little Glass Folk," brings an uncharacteristic Western classicism to the album, while the Anoushka and Ravi Shankar-composed work, "Oceanic," is the only piece aspiring to Indian classicism. Breathing Under Water is an ambitious album, although it has elements of pastiche, designed to expose Anoushka Shankar to a wider audience. --John Diliberto