For those of you who may not be terribly familiar with mp3 blogs, they are devoted to sharing songs their owners love. There are mp3 blogs devoted to hip hop, indie music, blues, soul, electronica, etc. Though some of these blogs include some folk music, there are few blogs entirely devoted to folk, traditional or world music (my musical loves). Before I continue a confession is in order: I write a world music mp3 blog, Tikun Olam.

Most of us offer songs we love to audiences we hope want to learn more about them. All of us want our listeners to go out and buy the music we feature. Many of us offer links to sites where the albums the songs come from can be purchased

As far as I can tell (and do not consider this a definitive survey — please let me know if there are other traditional music mp3 blogs out there), there are five currently active blogs dedicated to traditional music — not including Fly.

Benn loxo du taccu
One of the most impressive of the bunch is Matt Yanchyshyn’s Benn loxo du taccu (Wolof for “one hand can’t clap”). It features mostly the music of west Africa (he used to live in Senegal). Matt delights in finding rare historical recordings of the great musicians of the region though he also features current ones as well. Matt’s knowledge of the music, cultures and societies he writes about is deep and encyclopedic.

Matt took a post-college trip to Dakar, Senegal essentially on a lark. While there, he met someone who helped him find a job with Associated Press. This job has allowed him to travel through many African countries where he fell in love with (originally) funk and soul music from Nigeria and Ghana. All this happened only 3-4 years ago. I’m amazed that he’s amassed such extraorindary expertise in this field in such a relatively short time.

He sent me this e mail message which lays out why he’s doing his blog and its goals: “When I started to write Benn Loxo I did so because it gave me an excuse to hit-up the music markets in Dakar a little more often. That, and the idea of audioblogs was new and exciting. My friend in Canada had shown me Soul Sides and a couple others, and I realized that I was in a unique position to take advantage of a wealth of local music available in Senegal and post it for those who wouldn’t otherwise be exposed to it.

“I guess the web site motivates me to listen, collect and think about the music I’m listening to. The nice by-product is that others get to enjoy the music, too, and hopefully start buying more of the stuff… where African markets really need it.”
http://www.mattgy.net/music/

Worldly Disorientation
Peter Margasak is the Chicago Reader’s music critic and an international music DJ for WLUW. About his radio show, Mosaic, the station’s website calls it: “An excursion around the globe that explores both ancient traditions and the most contemporary developments in international music.” In other words, Margasak’s tastes cover the globe and range over many musical eras. He writes Worldly Disorientation, a blog that ranges from bhangra to Wassoulou to the Dakar Sound; from Eritrea to Sudan to Cuba. While his radio show features a mix of international headliners and indigenous musicians, the blog focuses on what is new, unusual or lesser known to the broader public.

I’ve long wondered why more world music DJs and journalists don’t have their own blogs. It seems like a natural extension of their craft and calling. Instead of merely offering your expertise either on radio or in print, why not extend your reach to the web and the millions of potential viewers you might find there? Perhaps these individuals are concerned about the issue of copyright involved in mp3 blogging (more on that later). Perhaps their jobs are hard enough without adding another medium and another set of responsibilities (and maintaining an mp3 blog does take time!). Whatever the reason, few are doing this and I think it’s a shame. Because mp3 blogging is yet another opportunity to spread the gospel of world music. There are so many knowledgeable world music DJs out there with great taste and record collections to boot.

But Peter is the exception to all that and all the more to be commended for it.
http://worldlydisorientation.blogs.com/

Calabash Music MP3 Blog
The Calabash Music MP3 Blog’s Brad Powell seeks to expand the reach of his online music site, which he calls “the world’s first fair trade music company: “We use ‘fair trade’ agreements giving our artists an equal share of all revenue from their music sales: whenever we work directly with an independent artist they earn at least 50% from every sale.”

Calabash is a music e-tail site devoted to the independent world music artists with which it has relationships. Its inventory covers the globe. Though it contains international headline acts like Thomas Mapfumo and Tinariwen, Brad features lots of indigenous musicians who may’ve not yet “broken out” onto the international scene. What I like about the way Brad’s using his blog is to introduce his audience to free downloads of individual songs. This in turn, allows visitors to judge the songs for themselves and decide whether they want to download more songs (for 99 cents per song) or an entire album. Brad’s mp3 blog is all about the music. He doesn’t write a lot about the songs he features, just the basics. He lets the music speak for itself.

Another innovation of Brad’s is to offer videos of many of the performers. I can’t recall many mp3 bloggers who’re doing this and it’s a great feature.

[You’ll be hearing a lot more about Calabash soon on Fly, Ed)
http://globaldownloads.org/

SoundRoots Global Culture
Scott Stevens’ SoundRoots Global Culture combines mp3s and commentary about music and culture:

SoundRoots provides information about, and commentary on ethnic arts and world cultures, particularly what’s known as “world music.”

His blog focuses on African music but is essentially fairly eclectic and all-embracing. Scott is a DJ on KAOS Radio in Olympia, WA, whose show is Spin the Globe.
http://soundroots.org/

Honey, Where You Been So Long
Honey, Where You Been So Long is dedicated to “pre-war blues.” Besides Peter Patnaik’s mastery of the genre, his blog conveys a great historical sense of the music and musicians of the period.

I found it touching that he’d wish his partner a happy birthday in his blog by dedicating Billie Holiday’s ‘Don’t Explain’ to her. What’s especially lovely is that it unites one’s personal life with music. You thereby honor the one you love through the music you love.

I’ll let Peter explain his blog’s purpose in his own words: “Our mission is to help spread the love of pre-war blues music through providing access to the musical tracks. It’s far too hard to get a real grasp of the scope of pre-war blues through any of the many box sets or iTunes playlists. The problem with both the box sets and playlists are that they only focus on one type of blues music or blues musician type. We try to avoid that by posting as many unknown blues people as popular blues people and try to give some historical context in which these people recorded music.”

Peter brings to a wider world Blues greats like Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown, Etta Baker, Skip James, Son House, Rev. Gary Davis and much more. He also dips his toes into country and gospel as well. His blog makes me feel sorry that I don’t know more about this foundation stone of American music. He is also a DJ on WUAG (Greensboro, NC).
http://prewarblues.org

Tikun Olam
I’ve had an mp3 blog incorporated into my overall blog for two and a half years. I blog, with few exceptions, about traditional music in which I include world, folk and other roots music. Unlike other mp3 bloggers here, I don’t consider myself an expert (‘knowledgeable’ would be a more accurate term). I haven’t devoted my life to the music professionally or otherwise and hence you may find mistakes in my work. But I have loved folk music for nearly 40 years and world music for 20. I’ve seen many concerts, listened to many records and read reviews, liner notes and books. But mainly I love the music and write from the perspective of an enthusiast.

I’ve written 114 posts trying to choose music that moves me in a profound and soulful way. My subject matter ranges the world from Brazil to Mozambique to Finland to Ireland to the United States and places in between. You’ll find in my blog Youssou N’Dour, Bob Dylan, Vartinna, Johnny Cash, Ali Farka Toure, Toumani Diabate, Pete Seeger, Orchestra Baobab, Ray Charles, Vasen, and Planxty among others.

My love for world music began with a college roommate who was born in Zimbabwe, emigrated to London and then to the US He turned me on to the Los Angeles world music scene in the 1980s where I first heard Commander Ebeneezer Obey, Quatres Etoiles, Thomas Mapfumo, Johnny Clegg, Malathini and the Mahotella Queens, etc. In those small West Los Angeles clubs, I jived on the dance floor into the wee hours of the morning carried away by the sinuous strains of soukous guitar licks and the sheer exuberance and joy of the music. If I can capture a little of this rapture in my blog and convey it to my readers then I will be very happy.
http://www.richardsilverstein.com/tikun_olam/category/folk-world-music/

MP3 Blogs & Copyright
Though some mp3 bloggers will not offer downloads of music unless the copyright holder has approved, they are in a slim minority. Most of us offer songs we love to audiences we hope want to learn more about them. All of us want our listeners to go out and buy the music we feature. Many of us offer links to sites where the albums the songs come from can be purchased. Most of us, of course, offer to take down any song if the owner objects to what we’re doing.

For some of us, this is almost a non-issue since no one (including their visitors) has ever objected to their activity (this is true of Matt’s blog). Though I’ve never been criticized by a songwriter or publisher and no one has asked me to remove a song (which I would do if asked), some of my visitors have denounced what I’m doing.

I maintain that the audience for traditional music is so small (relatively) that we bloggers are doing our share to further popularize the musical idiom. Seeing us as copyright violators or thieves (as I’ve been called) seems to me to miss entirely the benefit of what we’re trying to do. Yes, we offer a song to someone. They can listen to it. They can download it. But the latter isn’t the purpose of the blog. In fact, some of us discourage this (I do). But all of us want our listeners to spend money buying this music. All of us want traditional performers rewarded for their valuable efforts to enrich arts and culture with their musical contribution. I know for a fact based on my Amazon Associates reports that my visitors have purchased the music offered at my site. Not a lot, but those handful of sales wouldn’t have otherwise happened and that’s certainly a benefit to the musician.

I think Kate Kutsuwamushi addresses this issue forthrightly in what she calls her blog ‘creed’: “I believe that if you fall in love with a song and play it on repeat for a week, the artist is going to stick in your mind and you’re going to be more likely to buy their albums. Sharing select mp3s doesn’t decrease sales, it increases them.”

I know that to people who think file sharing is evil, this sounds like nothing more than rationalization. Maybe it is, but in my experience, it’s true. Almost all of my recent CD purchases were prompted by downloading some of the artists’ songs.

I hope anyone reading this will give a listen to the blogs featured here. And if you love the music and have something to say about it — why not start your own mp3 blog?