The Very Best are the New Face of Global Pop

by Nathaniel Whittemore

categories: africa, music

Published October 06, 2009 @ 01:56PM PT

Take one Malawian singer with a flair for bringing the joyous optimism of African music to Western pop and two international DJs based in London, introduce them through a set of unlikely circumstances and what do you have? You have The Very Best's "Warm Heart of Africa" one of the most exciting records of the year, and thanks to the connective power of the internet, you have the sort of distribution never possible before.

I first wrote about The Very Best last December on a short lived blog on my eponymous website. The post was called "Five Moments in Music 2008 that actually suggest the world might not be doomed." My basic point about The Very Best was that the unlikely collaboration (and our ability to discover it) are the upshot of global artistic transmission. While we rightly worry about the negative aspects of globalization, the democratization of artistic distribution that the social web creates is truly profound.

The music is amazing, and not just for the story behind it. In fact, in some ways, the triumph of it is that it doesn't rely on its story. It is not African-Western fusion music for the sake of it. It is not a contrived experiment in global collaboration. It is, instead, a few guys with a love for sounds from all over the place who found a connection in creating something great. Today's Pitchfork Music review nailed it. Forgive the block quote, but it's worth quoting at length:

Some people tend to get up in arms whenever African music gets mixed up with Western genres-- as if they haven't always been in a dialogue...The Very Best inspired me to learn more about some of the genres they employ, and if you do the same, that's great-- but an Afropop primer isn't what Mwamwaya's about here...Warm Heart of Africa pictures a glittering web of connectivity where national and cultural boundaries dissolve. People care about socio-cultural chin-stroking; music does not. This record simply wants to be heard, by whomever will listen and enjoy. There's no cynical play for authenticity, no implication that Afropop is somehow piously cordoned off from Western music. It's a true global-pop album, and a hopeful template for things to come.

It reminds me, in it's way of a notion about technology and social relevance from NYU professor and author Clay Shirky, who says something to the effect of "technology only becomes socially interesting when it becomes technologically boring." His point is that for something to have real impact, it has to be technologically the norm so that the average person might actually find their way to it.

In some ways, that's the case with music, art, and culture, as well. The implication of The Very Best is that artistically, like in solving global problems, we are better together. I hope more people hear this.