Last night was the final evening of Victoria’s annual JazzFest.  As a way of thanking its volunteers, the Jazz Society allowed anyone with a volunteer badge into the festival’s final show, which featured a group I had never heard of before – Staten Island’s Budos Band.
Thanks to the magic of Google, I quickly learned what Budos Band is all about.  Signed to Daptone Records - home of Sharone Jones & The Dap-Kings - the band describes their sound as “Afro Soul,” a mix of Ethiopian music, soul, and “a little bit of …

El Chavo is a Spanish musician who focuses on hip hop and funk. As far as I can tell he’s a producer, but he makes some pretty dope beats.  Many are funk-focused, but a few begin to go down the road of chiller hip hop.
He’s on the Jakarta Records label, which only really seems to be a MySpace phenomena, but worth checking out since they host some pretty amazing artists.  They’re based in Germany and the biggest artist on their roster is probably Looptroop, if you’ve heard of them.
Just to …

I know it sounds like a weird statement to make, but it’s true.  Bill Gates retired from Microsoft recently and is moving over to work full-time at his foundation, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.  They’re one of the largest charitable foundations in the world (if not the biggest) and have done some pretty unbelievable work to date.
Everyone and their mother seems to be vying to support Gates and the foundation, and they’ve garnered some insanely high profile supporters.  The best known is Warren Buffet.  The Oracle of Omaha decided …

We’ve previously reported on Jay-Z headlining the Glastonbury festival, and just how annoyed that made Noel Gallagher.
Now that the festival is upon us, you can see Jay-Z hitting back in one of the best ways possible.
I give you the Jay-Z live cover of Oasis’ “Wonderwall”.

I know, it’s a bold statement…
Until you read this.
The peeps at the Bonaroo festival were VERY unimpressed with Kanye’s performance.  He came on late, gave a half-assed show, and was, well, Kanye.
And he wasn’t just late, he was 2 hours late.  Awful.  Especially because his original start time was already around 3 am.
So people complained about it,  and I was shocked to see how furious he was.  He’s a diva.  The male Mariah Carey.  And yet he was mad that people could accuse him of giving a weak show.  We’ve …

For those of you interested, Björk and Sigur Rós are putting on a free concert in Iceland today to try and protest the growth of the aluminum smelting industry, or at leas the “destruction” of Iceland’s environment.
The Nattura concert would be tough to get to, but since it’d be a free show anyways, National Geographic Music has offered to webcast it live from 3pm – 8 pm EST.
Just click here to watch at the appropriate time.
[Source: National Geographic]

Tonight Seun Kuti, son of legendary Afro-beat pioneer Fela Kuti, is performing in Victoria, and yours truly has tickets.  I’m pumped, because if Seun is even half as funky as his father, in a few hours I’ll be getting my dance on fo sho.  He’s performing with Fela’s band as well, so it promises to be an evening of musical goodness.
In light of the occasion, I’ve decided to post Fela Kuti’s 1975 record Expensive Shit for your listening pleasure.  An explosive mix of African rhythms and American jazz-funk, Expensive Shit is …

This is just impossible to believe.  In a video shockingly reminiscent of the Vice Guide to Travel, two
Current.com’s Kaj Larsen and Christof Putzel venture into Mogadishu back in 2006, just as the Islamic Courts Union was taking power.  They actually managed to walk around and talk to a surprising amount of locals, an astonishing feat and they made a pretty intense video piece about it.  Watch it below.

Wale is an artist who we’ve covered many times before,
The Mixtape About Nothing is a pretty dope concept for an album.  As we’ve noted, it’s a hip hop mixtape inspired by Seinfeld.  Tons of little samples taken from the show, along with some solid rhyming.
The first video is out, called “My Integrity”.

We’re all so used to hearing about how India has benefited from outsourcing and technology.  That India’s middle class is booming and pretty much owes its thanks to globalization.  But it’s not good for everyone.
It’s estimated that about 800 million Indians live on less than $2 a day, and really don’t benefit much from the surge in call centers.  The burgeoning middle class, while successful, does not take its members from across the spectrum of castes and creeds.
This Financial Times article goes beyond and shows the life of seven average …