2006 Chicago World Music Festival: What should I see?

Just saw Oliver Mtukudzi and band. Not bad, sometimes too laid-back and I prefer fellow Zimbabwean Thomas Mapfumo more, but he's got a good band and some of his cuts groove nicely (women backup singers give some songs a South African like feel).

Rob Curto's Forro for All are a fun NY-based Brazilian outfit that specializes in that rural style (forro) using accordian and more.

Lots of other acts look promising from the links

I think you'd like Forro for All. It's funky Brazilian polka zydeco...sorta

I bet the Occidental Brothers will be good also. West African guitar grooves...

DJ Striz (Chicago/USA)
One of the windy city's most versatile DJs, Striz has developed a reputation for his unique blend of downtempo, hip-hop, broken beat, and house.

? I went to college with this guy. He's a white kid from the Midwest. Dunno what he's doing at this festival.

Jordan I'll try to go to that show but you know me and shows.

Steve I love forró, don't know how I missed that. But the name throws me a little bit. Also yeah Occidental Bros. sounds great.

PS: bring the soccer team

I thought it was a World Music Festival. I don't follow.

Does it matter if the Chicago Afr0beat Orchestra is made up of white people from Chicago or black people from Chicago or black people from Africa or all of the above?

Yeah, I mean, I know about bands like Nomo (Afrobeat from Michigan) -- but just glancing at the lineup for this, it seems like the vast majority of the performers are either international or ethnic Americans.

xpost, but seriously, I can guarantee you that a fair number of musicians in those bands are wkftm (at least the American ones like SSP, CAB, Fareed Haque, etc.).

white kids collaborating with Africans from Kenya(together in perfect harmony as Stevie W would say). Actually I read about these folks in a nice Christopher Porter article in the Washington City Paper...

Oh Matt, Rob Curto's Forro for All usually just play NYC, but they came down to DC once where I saw them. Not sure they even have a cd out.

Jody Rosen was just writing about Serbian Gypsy band Kal who are gonna be in Chicago (Jody was covering several Gypsy and hybrid Balkan type bands), in online mag Slate

mamadou diabate, curumin, cibelle and slavic soul party are all playing for free at various times, so i'm going to try to catch them. thanks, matt.

Yat-Kha from Tuva could be great. Not too sure about those recent covers, but the previous album was intriguing and different.

tonight my wife and i are going to try to see the whirling dervishes, whom we couldn't even get close to at the cultural center last night. we were among the couple hundred they turned away.

i gotta say this festival is probably one of the coolest things the city has going. i'm basically spending every lunch next week seeing something for free. tomorrow and sunday are just packed with free stuff all day. the only problem is logistics -- getting from uptown to hyde park or garfield park to downtown to navy pier.

OTM. these two were fantastic. unfortunate that the local previews of them focused entirely on the fact they are now on dave matthews' label and cover "stairway to heaven" on the soon to be released album. the originals they played were amazing and gabriela had to be the best female guitarist i've ever seen.

yesterday's daley plaza culture music club of zanzibar show was great, too.

unfortunate that the previews tried to get more people to see them?

luckily it's my last week at work, so i'm able to take looong lunches. tomorrow: kal, aurelio martinez and curumin.