NOW PLAYING:


Listen Thursdays at 3pm or Saturdays at 2pm on KEXP or click above to hear:

“The New World” A 10-Part Documentary Series

The explorers at KEXP Documentaries have set sail for uncharted musical lands. Step into “The New World”, a 10-part series of short musical stories on the latest faces in international music.

Meet Rodrigo y Gabriela, a duo from Mexico whose heavy metal background has them slamming their fingers into their acoustic guitars to intense rhythms fired by rock, rumba and jazz.

Listen closely to K’naan - an afro-sporting rapper from Somalia who not only paints a grim picture of growing up in Africa, but also has drawn himself in as the new, brutally honest, poetic face of modern African music.

Hear the incantation of Juana Molina, a former Argentinian comedian and tv celebrity who gave it all up to play with an electronic effects box, a guitar and some microphones.

Discover Nomo, a collective from Michigan who follow the great teacher Fela in the tradition of Afrobeat, but drop the bible by adding neo-funk, prog-rock and computer loops.

Follow One Giant Leap, two dudes from the UK who take their backing tracks far and wide to record with the world’s top musicians and speakers - including Michael Stipe, Maxi Jazz, Lila Downs, Noam Chomsky and Carlos Santana.

Hang out with 4 producers from Tijuana who call themselves Nortec Collective, and tell a new story of Mexico by warping techno and adding it to traditional Norteño instruments.

Find Curumin, a trained samba player from Sao Paulo who dances around his Japanese and Spanish heritage with an electronic mashup of samba, pop, Latin and Brazilian styles.

Bump up the party with Buraka Som Sistema from Portugal, whose urban ghetto-funk somehow incorporates the gentle, soulful rhythms of Kuduru music from Angola.

Take a moment to get to know A.R. Rahman, who has been leading the cutting edge in soundtracks in Bollywood for many years. And who is the first Indian to win an Oscar (he won 2, in fact) for his soundtrack to “Slumdog Millionaire”.

Dig deep into Eastern Europe to visit Skalpel, a band from Poland who take jazz, loops and sculptural sounds and add pop culture elements from their native Poland.


We bring you a musical subject in the time it would take to play just one song!