SRR #5: Randomness Is A State Of Mind
Japanese voice robots, Argentinian ambient, and (checks notes) Kenyan country?
A bit of an eclectic mix in this week’s Scene Report Report. Africa (as usual) has a lot going on, as does the extended Middle East. There’s some enjoyable stop-overs in Latin America’s criss-crossing cultural influence, as well as a quintessentially Japanese glimpse into a future no one might be ready for.
The Scene Report Report:
Issue #5
With all this talk of AI shaping music, Patrick St. Michael’s piece for Bandcamp Daily about Japanese Vocaloid culture is especially timely, reminding the world that machine-generated voices have been around in Japan so long that there are whole scenes forming around them.
Mirna K. had a feature in Egyptian Streets on how North Africa’s Gen Z are rediscovering the Raï music that was born in Algerian night clubs in the (19)20s.
Chinonso Ihekire writes an appropriately personal article for Pan African Music shedding light on the community-oriented Abuja rap scene and the collectives shaping it.
In a very different cultural corner of Africa, AFP reports on how Kenya has possibly the largest country music scene on the African continent, connecting with both Kenya’s sizable Christian population and (more unexpectedly) elements of indigenous music styles.
Flying over to South America, we find Maria Barrios guiding Bandcamp Daily readers through the rich world of Argentinian ambient and other experimental sounds.
Back to Africa, there’s Patrick Ezema in The Native exploring the ways that Brazilian Funk is starting to make inroads with Afrobeat artists. Sort of a scene report, definitely a report on how different scenes can influence each other across geographies and cultures.
New Lines Magazine published an in-depth feature by Oumeïma Nechi on the Arabic diaspora that is using music to create space for community and solidarity in France. The piece also got a shout-out in the Christian Science Monitor, which adds a few additional artist suggestions of their own.