Fez City Clan | Fez City Clan

Listen to a fabulous track from this CD.
Grab it all here.

When I began collecting music from around the world in the 1990s, I could never have imagined that one day you'd be able to walk into a music store like Kim's or Other Music and find a solid row of rock music from around the world.

The same cannot yet be said for rap and hip-hop. There is so much out there, all over the world, that it seems likely that at some point some intrepid soul or souls will launch a label or two and begin a similar process for the genre.

There seem to be two kinds of non-American rap: That which attempts to sound in every way as close to contemporary American rap as possible; and that which creates a kind of fission (as opposed to fusion) between the source and host musics, the result of which is often exciting and genuinely new. Obviously, I'm far more interested in the latter.

Happily, that's what we have in the CD above, which I found in a music stall in Marrakeh's Jamaa el Fna.

Some day--perhaps some day soon--I'll put together a zip file of samples of rap and hip-hop from around the world that I've discovered over the last decade. Until then, enjoy the present disc!