Punjabi Music's Global Takeover, Norwegian Fiddling, Phish in the Caribbean, Kaia Kater + Allison Russell, and more!
New writings and ideas in global music today, with a side of delicious YouTube videos...
Hi folks, I’m trying to make good on my bi-weekly plans for this newsletter, so here’s a brand new edition! And hey, the crazy thing is that I’ve already got 1,000 subscribers!?! I honestly have no idea how that happened? I think maybe I set up my website with Substack in some weird way that worked? Well anyways, that means I should take this thing kinda serious!
Interview with Punjabi Rapper NseeB from Vancouver
My music nerd buddies know that I’ve been OBSESSED with Canada’s Punjabi music movement since 2020. I’ve been telling anyone who could listen that this was going to blow up, even when not one single media outlet in Canada would cover this music. Now in 2023, the artists I was first listening to are pulling in BILLIONS of streams, booking arena shows, and playing Coachella this year! I wanted to dive deeper into the scene so I connected with Vancouver Punjabi rapper NseeB for my first article for The Georgia Straight (Vancouver’s alt-weekly). He was a bit hard to track down, but we connected over Whatsapp and had a great chat about Tupac and hip-hop, Punjabi music today, his struggles adjusting to life in Canada, and his regrets around the tragic death of his friend, the great Punjabi singer Sidhu Moose Wala.
Read more here:
https://www.straight.com/music/punjabi-rapper-nseeb-is-on-cusp-of-greatness
Basic Intro to Punjabi Music Today
Just for fun and because I’ve had to look up most of these videos for Facebook recently anyways, here’s a quick overview of Punjabi music today. If you want a really solid overview, read this great piece by key music journalist Jeevan Sangha. She rocks!
AP Dhillon - coming out of Victoria, BC with his earlier compatriot Gurinder Gill, AP Dhillon would sing over established hip-hop beats, shooting videos at the local golf course. Now he’s one of the biggest Punjabi artists, playing Coachella, racking up billions of streams… Prime Video even made a documentary series tracking his rise! His new single “Real Talk”, is great, but his early song “Brown Munde” is legendary.
Sidhu Moose Wala - the GOAT of modern Punjabi music, Sidhu brought together the many different influences, from the hip-hop and R&B beloved in the Canadian Sikh communities, to the traditional roots of Sikh song, filtered through autotune. I believe he was also one of the first to carry guns in the videos which was a huge point of controversy at the time. He was tragically murdered in Punjab in 2022, something that the Punjabi music world has never recovered from. I’m partial to “Tibeyan Da Putt” which has the BEST music video! His “Thug Life” tractor is pretty great.
Karan Aujla - Like NseeB, Aujla comes out of the Sikh communities of Surrey, BC, one of my favorite suburbs of Vancouver. He just picked up a lot of love for winning the TikTok Audience Award at the Junos (Canadian Grammys), which finally gained some attention from the Canadian press which has been notoriously disinterested in Punjabi music.
Ganghis Khan - this was my first intro to the Punjabi world (I heard him first with Deep Jandu) and it came before the rise of Sidhu. I just couldn’t believe that this guy was rapping over the Louvin Brothers “Satan is Real!” Gangis Khan is still going in Toronto these days and was an early Punjabi rapper in English. Check out Deep Jandu too for more of that Toronto Punjabi scene. Or more accurately, BRAMPTON.
Shakti’s Tiny Desk Concert
In other South Asian music news, I’ve been watching Shakti’s recent Tiny Desk Concert over and over! For 50 years, they’ve been fusing jazz and Indian classical traditions, but what’s more remarkable is just how much fun they’re having now. I just interviewed Shakti’s new violinist, Ganesh Rajagopalan, so I’ll have more info from him soon for the newsletter, but now I’m also wild about vocalist Shankar Mahadevan. His singing is spectacular, his vibe immaculate. He came up singing BOTH Hindustani (North Indian) and Carnatic (South Indian) classical music which is wild because they’re both so complex, and he’s really famous for his music in Bollywood films. Sure yeah, John McLaughlin’s cool and all, but Ganesh + Shankar + the legendary Zakir Hussain = oh yeahhhhhhh. Plus they won the World Music Grammy this year!
The Caribbean Roots of Phish?
OK now I will confess that I have literally never listened to Phish despite working in jamband-related fields for many years. That’s shameful! Thanks to my good music journalism buddy Jonathan Zwickel, I’ve just started listening now and I’m liking it! He pointed me towards my gateway to Phish, their cover of the Bahamian classic “Yamar”. Now, I love the music of the Bahamas and I love Goombay too, which this comes out of. I even worked PR for Smithsonian Folkways’ amazing release of this key Joseph Spence concert from the 1960s! Who would have thought that Phish would have a fun cover of this goombay song? According to legend, bassist Mike Gordon heard “Yamar” live in a Bahamian hotel and adapted it back in the 1980s. Is Phish one of the American jambands holding the Caribbean roots music torch high? I have no clue honestly, but I’ve been jamming to this song all week in both versions.
PS: If you want more Bahamian goombay music, I’m loving this recent reissue of 1950s singer George Symonette!
Two More Predictions for 2024
My last newsletter had a bunch of my predictions for where roots music is going in 2024 and I think folks liked it. My brain kept spinning afterwards and I came up with two more “safe bets” for this year in music!
Afrofuturist New Age Music and Ambience
Though Black artists have been at the center of New Age music before (check out Laraaji if you’re not familiar), there’s been a fascinating movement of hip-hop and jazz artists recently gravitating to New Age and Ambient music. I’m no expert here, just noticing a pretty great trend. André 3000 was maybe the highest profile artist doing this. He dropped a surprise (and truly great) ambient flute album late last year. Then Lil Jon announced a guided meditation album a month ago. Then jazz afrofuturist Shabaka Hutchings is poised to release another ambient flute album (also amazing and featuring André 3000) next week. Of course, it’s not just in hip-hop in jazz that we’re seeing this. I just found out that Americana singer Lydia Luce has a new age side project, Lethe, and Kendl Winter of roots duo The Lowest Pair just put out an album of banjo mantras. Looks like 2024 will see the rise of new age and ambient music!
More Irish Trance Trad
I don’t know if we’ve settled on a name for the new wave of Irish “trance trad” artists coming our way? Lankum’s been leading this charge, and they’re the best known, but this all actually started with Irish fiddler Martin Hayes in the early 2000s. Hayes slowed down Irish fiddling and drew out the trancier elements of the tradition, reworking old standards in new ways. Now with the new group Øxn (formed with Radie Peat of Lankum) furthering these sounds, plus others like John Francis Flynn and Eoghan Ó Ceannabháin, I think 2024 will see more tranced-out traditional music or “doom folk” from Ireland.
Interview with Norwegian fiddler Mattias Thedens of Gangar
A week ago I got the chance to interview the rather spectacular Norwegian fiddler Mattias Thedens of the band Gangar. I LOVE this band and have reviewed them a couple times. They basically bring together seriously beautiful traditional Norwegian fiddling on the hardanger fiddle with crushing heavy metal and folk rock. I interviewed him for WMI Plus At Home and Mattias even played some tunes on the hardanger fiddle. He talked about the similarities between Norwegian fiddling and Appalachian old-time fiddling, his early roots growing up as a folk dancer, and the importance of fiddle contests in building community. Also did you know that some Norwegian fiddle tunings are called “colors” based on the colors of the sky?
Back to Music PR Land with Kaia Kater
I feel like Pacino in Carlito’s Way: “Just When I Thought I Was Out, They Pull Me Back In!” I tried to quit music PR but when I was offered the chance to work on the gorgeous new album from Kaia Kater, I 100% caved and jumped back in the trenches of the music industry! Her new album, Strange Medicine, coming in May on Free Dirt Records is a gorgeous bout of songwriting, arrangement and banjo. She just dropped a new single featuring Allison Russell, “In Montreal.” It’s an ode to her hometown, and honestly Montreal is one of my most favorite cities in the world.
New Hearth Office Mixtape
Got up a new mixtape on Spotify if y’all are looking for new music! Features Regional Mexican music, Sami singing, classical piano, Québécois rap, Indigenous hip-hop, and lots more!
Hearth Family Happenings:
Lots of stuff going on for folks that we’ve worked with in the past! Love y’all Hearth Family!
LOVE the MerleFest 2024 Lineup
One of the great honors of my career was getting to work with Doc Watson’s legacy festival, MerleFest, in North Carolina. It’s coming up soon (April 25-28) and as usual the lineup is killer. I always gave MerleFest props for pushing to show the diverse roots of Doc’s legacy, unlike many other bluegrass festivals out there. Sure the headliners are what you’d expect (Old Crow, Nickel Creek, Sam Bush), but I love the wave of LGBTQ artists at MerleFest this year (S.G. Goodman, Adeem the Artist, Willi Carlisle, Palmyra) as well as folks like blues roots heroes Corey Harris and Buffalo Nichols, and Jewish bluegrass band Nefesh Mountain. Oh yeah and Missy Raines is the great too. Explore the lineup!
Katie McNally’s New England Roots Are Showing
Katie’s a fabulous New England fiddler with deep roots in Boston’s Cape Breton scene (we promoted her album Flourish way back in 2013). For many decades, Cape Bretoners would come to the “Boston States” looking for work, forming jam sessions and dance parties in the city when missing home. Katie’s new group, Pine Tree Flyers (with guitarist Owen Marshall, accordionist Emily Troll, and piano genius Neil Pearlman), is looking at the chestnuts of New England fiddle music, usually played for contra dances, but playing them with a delightful speed and ferocity. Check out “Smith’s Reel” of their upcoming album!
Guitar Teacher REACTS to Humbird
Loved working with Siri Undlin aka Humbird some years back and I’ve been really enjoying her new music. I just stumbled on this great video from a popular YouTube account from a guitar teacher who reacts to and kind of explains guitar techniques from roots and rock musicians. I don’t play guitar, so I can’t vouch for his advice on her playing, but jeez it’s just so refreshing to see a male guitarist get really excited about how a female guitarist is playing! “Oh I’m in rapture!” he exclaims. More of this energy in 2024 please!
Ric Robertson’s Ode to April
I’ve worked with Ric Robertson a number of times for Free Dirt Records and contend that he’s one of the most effortless sounding songwriters in Americana. I feel like he writes a perfect song every other day. A mix of John Prine and Randy Newman, he just put out this really lovely song “April’s Fool” as a kind of ode to Spring. His music is heartworn in the best way.
Thanks for reading my newsletter, folks! If you’ve read this far, enjoy this treat!
What is KITHFOLK?
KITHFOLK is a digital magazine I started way back in 2014! I used to publish it on Creatavist, a proto-Substack site that has long since shuttered. The goal of KITHFOLK is to shine a light on traditional and roots music from around the world!
What is Hearth Music?
Hearth Music is my digital promotions agency, basically a music publicity and presentation company. I use it as an umbrella for a lot of my work outside music writing.