Is Etnic-Hipster for real?

What is Etnic-Hipster? It is just a term I just made myself. It is probably unaccurate, but I am not after that. I just wanted to give a catchy name to a trend. There have been recently many popular music from non western countries that became trendy in the hipster scene. Early examples could be Konono Nº1. Another example could be Kuduro music.

First of all, let me state: I am very fond of African Popular Music. I first got in touch with it about 13 years ago with Soukous, and since then I always had an open ear to any modern band from any Africa country. So, just don't exect me to rant about how this music is overrated, just the oposite, I consider this music is heavily underrated: the best stuff happening nowadays is not going on on New York, London, Tokio or Jamaica; it's happening somewhere in Africa (or Latin America maybe).

But the real kings on this trend are a small record label from Seattle: Sublime Frequencies (Even if you are not interested in Etnic Music, just give a look at their website: it's one of the most unusual web designs I have seen recently). They are publishing music of all kinds: from 60's pop music from Thailand to North Korean alternative scene. To be honest a really impressive work: how did they manage to get and sort out all that music? Many of their stuff.

But there is a dark side inside. When I discovered about Bambino, I was puzzled: the artist call himself Bambino, but Sublime Frequencies, entitled the record as Group Bombino. Do they really have contacted the artist? Do they really know him? How could they have misnamed him? Are they just reissuing material without really working with the bands?

Besides my suspicious thoughts, there is a different issue: are those bands that get promoted as cool music really that great in their home countries, do they really represent a local scene? To answer that, I have just found a great article in English from an Arab point of view:

Omar Souleyman’s Rise to Indie-Hipster Semifame

I'm not trying to reach any conclusion on the subject. Just felt like sharing with you all my thoughts, and specially to point to a great insider point of view on this hipster trend.

By the way, Omar Souleyman is playing for first time in Galicia this month: Omar Souleyman is playing on Coruña on July 14th

02 July 2010