Nomadic Wax Nat Geo Remix featured on The World (BBC/NPR)
April 27, 2007
The World’ (BBC/PRI) featured Nat Geo’s Global Remix on yesterdays program. Nomadic Wax track – ‘Keep it Real’ by Pato (Benny Beats remix – and mixed by Notable productions) as well as LF and Laylo’s ‘Marcha Soldado (Benny Beats remix) are featured on the compilation.
To listen to the program click here!
National Geographic Compilation
Many older Americans remember learning about the world through the pages of the National Geographic. The magazine has changed a lot over the decades. Witness an article in this month’s issue. It’s about hip-hop. The World’s Marco Werman says the article ties into a bigger National Geographic musical initiative.The philosophy at the National Geographic Society is to broaden the view that Americans have of the rest of the world. Tom Pryor is the editor of National Geographic World Music, the on-line music component of the society.
“We want to reflect the world as it is now. And be an accurate reflection of the way music evolves in different countries. We don’t want to just give you Colombia with a sort of folkloric view of, “this is cumbia, this is vallenato.” We also want to tell you Colombia is not just that but it’s Shakira and it’s also champeta music. it’s all these things together. It’s these brash up-start musics which hip-hop is really one of them in a sense, you know.”
That explains why the society’s flagship magazine this month featured an article called “Hip Hop Planet.” And the website National Geographic World Music has produced a new CD of international pop music — remixed by other global artists.
This track for example, is by the Tanzanian group X Plastaz. They invoke Masai vocalizing and western hip-hop.
Some years ago, National Geographic began to shed its reputation as covering the world from a middle-aged armchair. The article “Hip Hop Planet” is further proof of that. And as Tom Pryor says, in some ways it actually helped that the writer James McBride is himself a middle-aged man.
”He actually grew up in Harlem; he’s of that age of the first generation of hip-hop. But he didn’t really like hip-hop. He was a jazz guy when he was younger. So the story is sort of about his coming around to the recognition that this is a global force. I mean, hip hop conquered the world, its global music. i mean you can find it anywhere in the world, people rapping in their own languages.”
The Senegalese rapper Pato is also featured on the new National Geographic CD, “GeoRemixed.” The band recently played a key role in raising political consciousness among young voters in Senegal, and getting them out to the polls.And at a time when US music mogul Russell Simmons is suggesting certain words be censored from the American hip-hop lexicon, African hip-hop comes off as refreshingly old-school without trying to be.
“There really is a lack of cynicism in African hip-hop. It’s still seen as having a social message, you know being something very positive. You know it didn’t go down that sort of bling and girls and that whole route that American hip-hop went down. You know in some ways it’s kind of innocent and it’s almost a little bit naive in some ways. It’s kind of touching. But there’s still an element of social responsibility, of this is music that can change things. And I miss that in American hip-hop, I really do.”
It would be ironic if National Geographic makes more Americans realize this. After all, many in this country will recall when the glossy pages of the magazine used to depict Africans as naked savages beating drums. Now the magazine shows just how plugged in to global culture many Africans really are.
web resources:
National Geographic – Hip-Hop Planet
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