Listen to "Phnom Penh Hip Hop" by The Khmer Rap Boyz (Cambodia)
Listen to "Haiti" by Elza Soares (Brazil)
Listen to "Eat Around" by Missile Scoot Girl (Japan)
Listen to "Γουστάρει Η Παλαβή" by Εισβολέας (Greece)
Listen to "DK Anthem" by Divided Kingdom Republic (Zimbabwe)
Get the 24-song mix here.
As anyone who has spent a bit of time in the Bodega knows, this here shop keep has a particular predilection for international rap and hip-hop--the further the language from English, the better. That said, rap & hip-hop from around the world comprise a small percentage of the CDs in my collection, maybe 1%, if that. But you wouldn't know it, looking at the BP tag cloud.
I'm not exactly picky when it comes to pop; though I suppose I do have some standards. But, while there is certainly a goodly amount of bad hip-hop out there--mostly stuff that simply mimics rap in the USA--there are people in all corners of the world who, picking up cues from Western examples, take it somewhere else, occasionally somewhere totally unexpected.
I'm not going to sit here this morning and tell you that every hip-hop artist in this mix is some sort of insane genius, turning rap & hip-hop up to 11. But some of them are. And those that aren't, at least among what I've tried to include here, are at bare minimum making the genre their own.
If you visit here often and have partaken of the dozen or so hip-hop related CDs I've posted over the last couple of years, fear not: I tried really, really, really extra-special hard not to duplicate, whenever possible. So there's Fama in here, but not the Fama you can get elsewhere on this site. I didn't actually count, but I think maybe 4 or 5 songs in this mix can be found in other full CDs or mixes on this blog.
I also didn't just rip stuff from YouTube videos, although--Jesus God Almighty, it was certainly tempting. Everything here is from my own personal CD collection, with a few things I downloaded myself from other sites that I wasn't able to find in CD anywhere (e.g., the Khmer Rap Boyz).
Okay, I'm going to shut up now and let you get to this. Would love to know what you think. It's my personal favorite Bodega Pop mix, and--at some point in the future, assuming people like this--I'll probably put together another (or two, or three).
