After a best mate of mine introduced me to Fela Kuti’s works I’ve been real interested in hearing music from other cultures you don’t hear much stuff from. Doesn’t have to be traditional music styles (love it when genres and cultures fuse together, like Masayoshi Takanaka taking influence from Brazilian music), but I’d love to hear that as well!
Alien Weaponry, New Zealand metal band comes first to mind. Lots of Maori influence, all three members have Maori ancestry.
May I have the honor of introducing you to African Rhumba: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=O3BexfHBTIg
That is a favorite one. The album is by two of the greatest in African music: Franco Luambo (of TPOK Jazz) and Tabu Ley (of Afrisa International). They did this album to cool down rumours that they were fighting and don’t see eye to eye. They called it Lisanga ya Banganga (Congress of the Wizards).
This specific song I share is solemn, as they are mourning the death of their mentor, Kabaselle.
Check their respective Wikipedia entries. It is a whole new world you are peeking into.
Very, very nice. Thanks.
How could I forget Cesaria Evora?!
The Mongolian metal band The Hu fuse tradition instruments with metal styling and a badass attitude that Genghis would approve of
Also their name is great.
If you like The Hu check out Uuhai and Batzorig Vaanchig.
Thinking of Asian metal related music reminded me of Senyawa who are from Indonesia
Great band, on the more experimental side of things
Ah yes the bad that gave me tinnitus. Wonderful to see live just make sure you have earplugs and stuck by the crowd next to the speakers with two beers and a deaf sound engineer.
Loop Experience ones are good. Otherwise, tissue.
And they will finally play their homeland for the first time since making it!
The Hu at this point might be more famous than the country they’re from (which to be fair, isn’t THAT obscure, but how often DO you think of Mongolia?)
Spotify suggested a bedtime playlist with Elin and the Lullaby Orchestra. They are from Norway. Their albums will put your kids to sleep, but It Came from the Universe to my Landing Pad slaps. That song legitimately deserves a hair metal/glam rock cover.
If you’re into metal, here are a few bands renowned for mixing cultural music with heavy metal off the top of my head:
Norway - Ulver (They have possibly the most varied discography in all of music, but their first album is a mix of black metal and Norwegian folk music, and their second is entirely Norwegian folk music)
Brazil - Sepultura (From Arise to Roots they started incorporating a lot of Brazilian musical ideas)
Romania - Negura Bunget (They’re the only reason I know what a nai is)
Brazil isn’t an obscure country, but there’s an indigenous band called Uakti that builds their own instruments. It’s some of the most unusual music I’ve heard. They also have some classical albums, and one by Phillip Glass that I like to listen to when I’m coming down from a trip.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kadril
Belgian folk groupSpecifically: https://www.discogs.com/release/6421340-Kadril-La-Paloma-Negra
made with the band Alumea.Review: https://www.rootsworld.com/reviews/kadril-alumea.shtml
This two-disc set is a studio version of a concert program produced jointly by Galician family combo Alumea and Flemish folk-rock band Kadril, inspired by Flemish pilgrims in Galicia. The results are peculiar but satisfying.
I wish I could find the KCRW episode about this album. That’s (I think) how I heard about it.
O-Zone (of “Numa Numa” fame) is from Moldova; that’s pretty obscure, right?
Ylvis (“What Does the Fox Say?”) is Norwegian.
“Epic Sax Guy” is… also Moldovan, apparently. Huh.
That’s a list of Eurovision hits right there.
Moldova had a good run for a few years. Don’t think they’ve made the finals over the last few though.
O-Zone
I curse you just for mentioning them. I freaking hate that song.
May be Maximum the Hormone. They’re probably pretty big in Japan though.
Soda Stereo from Argentina, and Monsieur Periné from Colombia
NZ - Supergroove, Che Fu, DD Smash, Dragon, Darcy Clay, Trinity Roots, Salmonella Dub, Katchafire - the NZ dub and roots scene should be checked out by anyone who likes roots. Ignore six sixty.
Germany - Colour Haze
Nick Drake - more people should listen to this guy.
Some latam-based ones
- Uruguay - El cuarteto de nos. Rock/indie rock but sometimes they mix in Latin American sounds as well (check out the song Mario Neta).
- Paraguay - Kchiporros, Bohemia Urbana. Ska and Paraguayan rock.
- Mexico’s Yucatan - Pat Boy. Rap in Mayan and sometimes Spanish. Does collabs with other singers of indigenous languages.
Traditional Argentinian music: Soledad or Los Chalchaleros
Traditional Brazilian music: Chico Buarque or Caetano Veloso
Traditional Brazilian music from the northeast: Luiz Gonzaga
Argentinian Rock from the 60/70: Sui Generis or Pedro y Pablo
Brazilian Rock from the 60/70: Cazuza or Raul Seixas
Argentinian contemporary music: Bersuit Vergarabat
Contemporary Brazilian Rock (there are tons of metal bands from Brazil, like Angra, Sepultura, Shaman, etc, but I want to point out one in specific): Matanza (although I would describe them more as a hardcore us country style than rock, they sing mostly in Portuguese so it has a very unique style)
Comedy music is a great view into a society, so as a bonus:
Argentinian homemade instrument band: Les Luthiers (this one is a YouTube link because realistically you want to see these guys, not just hear them)
Brazilian Metal joke band: Massacration
I’m trying to figure out if you have a misplaced modifier with “obscure, lesser known”. You have it modifying “country” in the title. In other words, you want musicians of any level of renown who come from a lesser known country.
However, you mention Fela Kuti, who is from Nigeria, which is not a lesser known country. You would have to be very ignorant of basic world geography to not have heard of Nigeria.
And, as usual, commenters are completely ignoring your criteria by mentioning musicians from Germany and New Zealand and Columbia and Vietnam.
So perhaps you meant obscure musicians instead of obscure countries, but that would still leave me wondering what subset of countries you intended? Just countries other than your own? But if so, I don’t know what country you are in.
I suppose nationalities or cultures would have been better! People are not their nation and culture crosses borders and all that. As for calling Nigeria lesser known, I suppose I mean more the culture and people of Nigeria than the nation itself. Lots of people where I’m at know of Nigeria at least by name, and typically they think of internet scammers. But if I asked random folks where I’m at who Fela Kuti was I’d get lots of no’s back.
Could have worded it as “lesser known cultures” or “cultures not commonly discussed”.
Ohhhh! Now I see what you mean. Yeah, I’ve known 2 different dudes from Nigeria over the years but I don’t know anything about the culture.
Like, I know they have a world class soccer team & I’ve heard of their dictator from the 70s – Idi Amin – but that’s about it. And yeah, I guess the spam email thing too.
Idi Amin was Uganda! ;-)
