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it is a strange feature of the american corporate music market that almost nothing not sung in english gets any exposure. given the size of the market, it is therefore not surprising to find lots of performers trying to sing in english as a way to access it. so you find all kinds of performers in the strange field that is "world music" who try it out---sometimes it s interesting, sometimes it is a debacle.
i think einsturzende neubauten switches back and forth well--blixa has different lyric-voices for each language. i kinda like when alpha blondy tries it, but probably not for the reasons he would prefer.
it is sad, though, because there is a huge amount of really interesting music that americans have difficulty accessing on account of the language. i think french hip-hop has been more interesting than american, for example--but where can you hear it in the states? certainly never on the radio.....
maybe this will break down a bit as a function of netradio.
personally, i look forward to the implosion of the corporate-dominated music industry altogether, but that is a different matter........
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a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear
it make you sick.
-kamau brathwaite
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