VA - Putumayo Presents: Global Soul (2003)

For decades, England has been the world's second largest market for R&B. But R&B's popularity isn't limited to English-speaking countries -- in the '70s, soul and funk heavily influenced everyone from Brazilian star Milton Nascimento to Nigerian innovator Fela Kuti. And since then, R&B's popularity has continued to grow in a variety of countries. Global Soul, an intriguing compilation that Putumayo assembled in 2002, illustrates the impact that hip-hop-minded urban contemporary is having outside of the United States. Putumayo could have done things the easy way and included a lot of British artists -- having English lyrics, after all, makes it a lot easier to reach American audiences. But Putumayo loves to be ultra-eclectic, and Global Soul demonstrates that one doesn't have to perform in English to embrace urban contemporary or be influenced by it. Most of the lyrics, in fact, are not in English; the listener hears modern R&B being performed in everything from French (Melgroove's "J'attendrai"), Italian (Traccia Mista's "Senza Trucco"), and German (Joy Denalane's "Höchste Zeit"), to the Douala language of Cameroon (Kaïssa's "Nika Pata Lambo"). Fernanda Abreu's "Eu Quero Sol" underscores urban contemporary's influence on Brazilian pop, and Tasha's "Beyond the Ocean" demonstrates that neo-soul can even have Korean lyrics (although Tasha also performs in English). For those who have only heard R&B performed in English, Global Soul might come as a shock. But those who are heavily into different types of contemporary world music won't find the CD to be terribly shocking -- for a long time, soul, funk, and hip-hop have been having a major impact on everything from Indian bhangra to Algerian rai. Putumayo's ambitious compilations are usually an adventure, and Global Soul is no exception.