The Hip Hop Hoodios are a unique band who layer Latin and American Jewish cultures over rap. We've broadcast their videos "Ochos Kandelikas" and "Gorito Cosmico" and thoroughly enjoyed the band's cheesy, smart (and smartass) attitude.  I really like their latest video "Times Square," but it simply won't fit into the definition of "world music" with a shoehorn. And you KNOW I'm a moderate when it comes to that category. But still, the subject is close to my heart, so I'm presenting it here anyway. 

I went to high school in Manhattan, on 46th Street and 6th Avenue, and so I have watched the gentrification of Times Square with a combination of nostalgia and unease.  I don't know if it makes sense to mourn the passing of an area that was admittedly dangerous and seedy. It's easy to say the place has "lost its edge" and is now totally "Disneyfied." Yet, for some reason, I do feel that there is something that has been lost...and what about the ongoing re/de-construction on the Bowery (lower 3rd Avenue) where a new generation of young professionals will soon be living in renovated flophouses? On the bright side, maybe they can exorcise the sad karma of a million ruined lives. But what has happened to those souls who used to inhabit both of these urban areas; the impoverished, the hopeless and the addicted. Where do they go now? Is our trend towards gentrification simply putting a bandaid over a larger social wound?

Keeping a band together in NYC is TOUGH.  I know because I've done it -- or tried to do it -- myself. So I have to hand it to Scott Kettner for sheer tenacity, regarding his pet project "Nation Beat." You may remember Scott as one of my very first interviews for this blog, about his Forro Brass Band. He made me promise back then to blog something about Nation Beat, so I started collecting and shooting footage, and letting the story develop.

Scott does raise an interesting issue, regarding "world music." In the fledgling days of the term, it was assumed that Cajun, Zydeco, Tex-Mex, Bluegrass, etc. were all part of world music. (Just check out the landmark "Rough Guide to World Music" published in 1994.) Since then, the term has expanded to include all kinds of hybrids. So in my opinion it's a kind of daft political correctness to exclude the Country Music influences in the Nation Beat repertoire...after all they aren't getting up there and doing an all-Country set; it's American Country filtered through Brazilian Country.  And anyway, our Country Music derives from our Scots-Irish heritage, does it not?  Or does that not qualify as world music to some folks any more? 

A few weeks ago we had the way cool video "Little House" by Napra as our video premiere. Well, they had some great live performances on their DVD, but they could not get broadcast-worthy format of that for us. So here's where it's great to have a blog! Check out this totally killing band doing a distinctly modernized version of an "Ugros," a traditional Hungarian folkdance.

That's some amazing playing, and IMHO this band deserves more exposure. Miklos Both is a true guitar monster, and they could open for just about any rock act, and more than hold their own! This performance is from 2008, at the Palace of Arts in Budapest.