I first met Josh Norek about ten years ago when he sent me a low budget video of his Latino-Jewish band the Hip Hop Hoodíos. It was a song about Chanukah sung in Spanish and English, and there were plenty of surreal shots of the "Bagel Babe" - a hot young thing wearing a bra made from that circular staple - even in a Jacuzzi! I sensed there was an unusual mind behind this.

Further down the road, Josh sent me an email about a new event: the Latin Alternative Music Conference (LAMC) that he was co-organizing in New York City. I wished him well. He continued to send me press releases about bands I had never heard of but which were pretty damned good. I started to trust his taste.

Five years ago, he helped Tomas Cookman launch the company Nacional Records. Between them, they had tons of experience managing and promoting "Rock en Español" acts, and soon they began aggregating the strongest roster of Latin Alternative Music extant. Then, prior to the past presidential election, Josh sent an email around, saying he was taking a sabbatical (or should that be shabattical?) from the music biz, and donating significant time to his favorite grassroots organization, Voto Latino, working to register and activate young Latinos in battleground states to get the vote out. Since then he has also gotten his radio show "The Latin Alternative" up and syndicated. So when I heard that Josh was going to be in town, I jumped at the chance to interview him. His time as usual, was tight; we had just half an hour, so we plowed into it despite the noise from construction on an adjacent floor.

No matter where we fall on the immigration issue, the undeniable fact is that the burgeoning Latino population is changing the face and culture of the USA. I wanted Josh to talk about this, to reflect on the relationship between music, demographics and activism. He did that and more; his conversation was so far ranging that I may have to present those parts of it that dealt specifically with Rock en Español, Nacional, the LAMC and the state of the music industry in general, at a later date.

I have nothing against the idea of the latest fundraising video for Haiti because the cause is certainly a great one; it's just that I tire of the usual bevy of First World entertainers belting it out. That's why it's refreshing to meet someone like Mark Johnson, one of the founders of Playing for Change.  By now you've all probably heard about this organization through the widely seen globetrotting video of "Stand By Me." The first time I saw it, I thought it was pleasant enough, but what was it for, what was the next step -- what was the substance? Mark clarified it all for me in an eloquent interview, in which he laid out a vision for using music as a catalyst for social change. I've heard my share of pie-in-the-sky blah blah about using music for this or that, but Mark's ideas are not dreams -- they are based on solid reality and hard work.

Can any of us deny that one of our greatest achievements to date is our unprecedented technological connectivity? Playing for Change is not just about making pretty videos. It's about connecting a global community where access to medicine, education, and mutual respect are a given.

I had a conversation many years ago with Christoph Borkowsky, one of the founders of the World Music Expo, WOMEX. At the time he said to me that the music of every nation should be treated as a natural resource. He chafed at the lack of market exposure great world artists got, and was certain that significant revenue streams could result from a level, truly international marketplace. Now that a new generation can access global content with ease, perhaps the idea finally has the proper soil in which to grow. And perhaps the next great musical outpouring of support for a cause will well up spontaneously, from another part of the world, and have a truly international face and sound.

My colleague Fernando Gonzalez has graciously contributed this exclusive eulogy for Mercedes Sosa who passed away last week. We both agreed that the video of her performance of "Todo Cambia" captures her passion, charisma and the love she elicited from her fans. Thank you, Fernando.

Mercedes Sosa

By Fernando Gonzalez

For an artist, becoming a political symbol is a double edged sword.
Argentine singer Mercedes Sosa, who died of in kidney failure in Buenos Aires on October 4, at age 74, was for many Mother Courage, The Voice of the Americas, The Mother of the Americas, The Voice of the Voiceless, and more.
Sometimes obscured by the mythmaking was the fact that she was an extraordinary artist.
A short, stocky woman, with Indian facial features and jet black hair (she was nicknamed La Negra, the black one), Sosa possessed an extraordinary alto voice, rich and powerful but also remarkably expressive. She could go from a whispered love song to a rousing flag-waver with stunning ease. Sosa was not a songwriter. But, quoting an old line, when Sosa sang a song, it stayed sung. She made her own songs such as “Gracias a La Vida,” “Alfonsina y el Mar,” and “Maria, Maria,” even when the songwriters were themselves major figures such as Violeta Parra and Milton Nascimento. 
She performed usually sitting center stage – although before health problems pretty much confined her to a chair on stage, she would also get up and dance, a memory perhaps from when Sosa was a teenager in Tucumán, a province in Argentina’s northwest, and she was a teacher of folk dances.
She started as a traditional folk singer but soon she was part of a group of poets and musicians who were, sometimes literally, rewriting folk music with what became known as Movimiento del Nuevo Cancionero, the New Song Movement, updating the standard folk lyrics to address the plight of the poor and disenfranchised. It set the tone for her entire career.

 “We were looking for a different poetic language, and musically we looked at jazz,” she once explained. “We spoke from truth and poverty, but didn´t forget about the landscape, because we didn’t want to grow apart from the people. They called us communists because any revolutionary act provokes fear and culture is the most important revolution. Governments don’t last. Culture is the greatest power.”
Notably, and especially after her return to Argentina in 1982 after a three year self-imposed exile, Sosa not only maintained a progressive attitude regarding the lyrics but applied it to her music, collaborating, for example, with rockers such as Charly Garcia and Fito Páez, and opening her repertoire to young, sometimes unknown, songwriters.
In recent years, in 1997 and again in 2003, she struggled with various health problems. In ‘97 the situation was so dire that, she acknowledged years later, she wrote her testament. Her problems in 2003, including severe depression, kept her off the stages for two years.
Sosa died after 13 days at the hospital. Her illness canceled plans to present a new two-disc set of duets featuring an all star cast of collaborators including García, Páez, Shakira, Julieta Venegas, and Joaquín Sabina. (It was released in the U.S. as one disc including selections from the two volumes.) It was, appropriately, called “Cantora,” singer.
For all the names she was called, this was the only title Sosa claimed for herself.
"Sometimes, one is made to be a big mouth or some sort of Robin Hood and it's not like that," she once told me, in the 90s. "I am a woman who sings, who tries to sing as well as possible with the best songs available. I was bestowed this role as big protester and it's not like that at all. I'm just a thinking artist."

This just in from a friend who thought it was worth sharing.  He's right.
Istanbul's Sulukule, the world's oldest Gypsy settlement, known for its music & dance clubs, is being demolished by developers to make way for gentrification. If you have ever been entranced by the sound of Turkish Roma clarinet, read this and weep.

Good-bye, Gypsies: The Loss of 1,000 Years

Rupa, who fronts the April Fishes is certainly a multi faceted creature. A doctor, a musician, a painter, a linguist, she is someone who doesn't just sing about life, she plunges in with both feet.  She spent quite a bit of time talking to me in New York about the various bandmembers and singing their praises (sorry Fishes, I didn't use that stuff --and readers, it IS an excellent band!) but eventually we got down to some of the subjects that drive her.

A documentary about the band's trip along the border between Mexico and the USA is in production.

On another note, there is a very moving video that while as commercial as it gets, cuts to the heart. It is an homage to Neda, and all the young people who have demonstrated and suffered during the recent government crackdown in Iran. The majority of people living in that country are now below the age of 30-- Possibly the largest demographic on earth of educated young people to be held back by their own government. These days we all know we are watching history when we watch Iran.

The ripples continue to spread outward.