“IS AMERICA PART OF THE WORLD?” Continues with Third Installment at Littlefield
Four American-rooted, genre-defying acts look beyond America’s borders for inspiration and world beats

Nation Beat drummer/bandleader Scott Kettner and event producer Mehmet Dede have always challenged the notion of “world” music through the shows they put on. The duo launched a series of events in 2009 to foster a platform of discussion and bring together bands, who blurred the lines of world music while moving hips. The series, “Is America part of the World?”, was described by National Geographic Music as “Brooklyn’s new Global Music series” and garnered attention online and in print. Brooklyn Courier-Life noted that “the concert isn’t so much a question, as a statement to the conventions that define the world music category,” and The Lucid Culture blog raved about the “impressively energized crowd” at its events.

After two successful concerts at the Bell House and the BKLYN Yard the event now moves to another Brooklyn hotspot, Littefield. In the past year, the series hosted such venerable artists as Forró in the Dark, Rupa & The April Fishes, Red Baraat and DJ Nickodemus. On December 10, four more acts will present an eclectic night of dance, beats and sounds of the East, West, North & South. Nation Beat serve their Brazilian Carnival-meets-New Orleans Mardi Gras cocktail, while eleven-piece eclectic jazz orchestra Brooklyn Qawwali Party bring out the thunderous Qawwali songs and Tall Tall Trees hold it down with their banjo-driven folk rock for fans of indie rock and world music alike. One of New York’s finest mixocologist DJ Turmix provides the funky Soul, Brazilian, Nu-jazz, Breaks and Boogaloo tunes. Join us on this joyous holiday celebration and our last party of the year.

Is America part of the World? III
Friday, December 10 2010
8pm

Nation Beat
Brooklyn Qawwali Party
Tall Tall Trees
DJ Turmix

at Littlefield
622 Degraw, Brooklyn, NY 11217
(718) 855-3388

More Info at http://www.littlefieldnyc.com/event/20767
$10 adv tickets available at http://www.ticketfly.com, $13 at the door
21+ w/ ID

Rupa & The April Fishes will be traveling to NY behind their new album “este mundo,” due out on Cumbancha on Oct. 27. The San Francisco-based musical agitators are specialists in crossing borders and building bridges, and on “este mundo” they effortlessly mix elements of Gypsy swing, Colombian cumbia, French chanson and Indian ragas to create a sound Time Out has called “global agit-pop.” Brooklyn based Nation Beat plays American music from both the North and South. They are rhythm gatherers, harvesting the fruit of 500 years of cultural cross-breeding from northeastern Brazil to the deep American South often breaking out into massive carnival parties at their live shows. Banning Eyre from Afropop Worldwide calls them “a revelation…the most original and alluring fusion band I’ve heard in years.”




Friday, November 13, 2009
8pm

Is America Part of the World? – Part 2 with
Rupa & The April Fishes
Nation Beat

at The Bell House
149 7th Avenue
Brooklyn NY 11215
718.643.6510
www.thebellhouseny.com

$15 tickets at ticketweb.com
21+ w/ ID

See you at the BKLYN Yard today. Doors 2pm, we go until 9pm. Bring friends & family – it’s going to be in the upper 70s with the sun smiling.

Tickets now available at www.brownpapertickets.com

(Please note: This promo is only valid with advance orders, it is not available at the door. This promo cannot be coupled with different orders. Your ticket order has to be in denominations of 3, i.e. 3, 6, 9 tickets. One free ticket for every 3 tickets)

Article published in the Brooklyn Courier-Life

By Meredith Deliso

A couple of years ago, Nation Beat, a Brooklyn-based band inspired by Brazilian music, were invited to play at a world music festival. When the organizers asked them not to play any of their English-language songs, the reason why was: it’s a world music festival.

“Our response was, well isn’t America a part of the world?” remembers Scott Kettner, the percussionist for and founder of the band. “It was a big controversy. They finally folded and let us play what we play.”

The incident has stayed on Kettner’s mind ever since, and, while so resonantly played out on stage at the festival, he encounters every day as a musician, and he’s not comfortable with it.

“We have a beef with that whole world music category,” says Kettner, whose own band blends Brazilian maracatu, forro, coco, and ciranda rhythms with American rock, pop, country, bluegrass, and funk.

For one, he says, “World music is a generic term that is degrading towards the cultures where the music comes from. If you go to Africa, they don’t call their music world music. If you go to Brazil, they don’t call it world music. It’s got a name and a style and a culture that’s attached to it.”

On the other hand, you also have a new generation of musicians adopting different styles of music while remaining true to their roots and finding a common ground.

So on July 11, he’s producing an outdoor music festival at the Bklyn Yard along the Gowanus Canal, inviting local bands that, like his own, fuse international music with American styles and confuses notions of “world music.”

Among those playing at the festival, fittingly called “Is America Part of the World?”, include Nation Beat, as well as Forró In the Dark, who sing in English and Portuguese, Red Baraat Festival, who blend North Indian rhythm Bhangra with brass funk, dhol, percussion, horns and traditional Punjabi songs, and DJ Nickodemus, who spins funk, jazz, hip-hop, house and dub for a urban and regional sound.


As the lineup proves, the concert isn’t so much a question, as a statement to the conventions that define the world music category, and which these, and many other bands nationwide, defy.

“These bands are not ‘traditional’ or ‘authentic’ in the sense of how the industry defines these terms. They cannot be put into a box of just one genre” says Kettner. “In fact, these groups break all of the traditional concepts of genre and have become marginalized by the industry because there doesn’t yet exist a box to fit us into. Each band has embraced its international influence but has not abandoned its American backgrounds.”

“Is America Part of the World?” is July 11 from 2 p.m. to 9 p.m. Tickets are $18, with free admission for children. Bklyn Yard is located at 388-400 Carroll St.