Nigerian musician and band leader Fela Kuti was one of the most influential African musicians in the past decades. He has become a  legendary figure and his legacy continues through dozens of Afrobeat bands throughout the world, including groups led by some of his sons, Femi Kuti and Seun Kuti. A new book, titled Fela: Kalakuta Notes (Kit Publishers, ISBN 9789068327489) provides captivating details and photography about the life of Fela Kuti. The mesmerizing photographs are by Jak Kilby, Rico d'Rozario and Thierry Secretan.

The multifaceted author, John Collins, knew Fela Kuti well. He constructs a captivating picture of Fela thanks to testimonies by musicians that played in Fela Kuti's bands (as well as personal accounts, essays, diary notes and a 1975 interview with Fela Kuti. Collins provides juicy details about the birth of the Kalakuta Republic. While in prison for marihuana charges, Fela became a leader among inmates, who called the jail cell Kalakuta (rascal in Swahili). After his release, Fela renamed his home the Kalakuta Republic, a haven for musicians and artists in the thriving Lagos scene that also the scene of numerous confrontations with the local authorities.

Nor-tec Rifa!: Electronic Dance Music from Tijuana to the World by Alejandro L. Madrid (Oxford University Press)

Border towns are fascinating urban centers, which are natural crossroads for the exchange of ideas and cultures. The Mexican city of Tijuana, located just across from the United States, south of San Diego (California) is no exception. During the past decades, Tijuana's most creative artists were exposed to music and other art forms from both sides of the border and beyond. The book Nor-Tec Rifa! explores the history and development of the exciting Nor-Tec sound, a blend of northern Mexican popular music with electronic dance music from the United States and Europe. The name Nor-Tec combines norteño with techno.

David Rothenberg
 Thousand Mile Song: Whale Music in a Sea of Sound
 (comes with CD)
 Basic Books
 
 I realize that a review for a book focusing on whale songs might seem a bit strange, maybe even out of place on a world music site. However, musician and author (of several books including "Why Birds Sing: A Journey Into the Mystery of Birdsong"), David Rothenberg brings us another dimension. And he brings up the concept that non-human creatures enjoy listening to and making music as much as humans. And for many readers such myself this seems like a manifestation of one of those wild childhood dreams.

Take a communist playwright, actor, singer, and songwriter and introduce him to a young American musician and singer half his age. They fall in love. Add an ex-submarine commander with a eccentric view of radio as Art. Send them with the new mobile tape recorder to railway yards, onto fishing vessels, down coal mines, in search of gypsy encampments. Now read about the most compelling series of radio programs ever made.
 
 So state the notes on the cover of Peter Cox's latest book, Set into Song. The book that all folk music lovers wish they had written. The making of the eight ground breaking Radio Ballads. It's about the lives of the makers, the lives of their subjects set into song, public broadcasting, the BBC and above all it documents a slice of the folk revival in the UK. Such tremendous subjects and timely too as 2008 marks their 50th anniversary year.

Tango Voices Songs from the Soul of Buenos Aires and Beyond
 Compiled and Edited by Donald Cohen
 Wise Publications
 
 New Yorker attorney, history and music professor, guitarist and music folklorist Donald Cohen explores the life of the tango canción and its propagation throughout the world in his book Tango Songs From the Soul of Buenos Aires and Beyond. With printed music and lyrics, photographs, reprinted songbook covers and accompanying CD, Mr. Cohen introduces readers to the music, lyricists, composers, performers and stories behind twenty-six tango cancións from all over the world, celebrating the worldwide seductive lure of the tango.

Roger Steffens and Peter Simon - Reggae Scrapbook (Insight Editions, 2007)

I don’t get hooked on many books, but two that caught my attention and remain favorites are 1977’s Reggae Bloodlines and 1983’s Reggae International, both of which were collaborated upon by writer Stephen Davis and photographer Peter Simon. Simon’s photographs are likewise part of what makes this new examination of reggae as classic as that earlier pair and Davis provides an eloquent introduction, but the bulk of the text this time was penned by Roger Steffens.

Steffens is a Los Angeles-based author, actor and lecturer (his multimedia presentations on Bob Marley are amazing) who possesses the largest private collection of reggae memorabilia in the known world. It’s his decades-long love for reggae that led to his amassing such a collection, and that affection is evident in every word and image the Reggae Scrapbook contains. The book’s perspective is both heartfelt and historical, with Steffens and Simon outlining the story of Jamaican music from the pre-ska era to now. They spotlight key figures and personal favorites, comprehensively tying in such factors as politics, cultural identity, ganja, and of course the Rastafarian faith.

Ethnomusicologist and dancer Tomie Hahn delves into the process of immersing oneself and incorporating the cultural knowledge of the nihon buyo, the traditional Japanese dance form in her book Sensational Knowledge Embodying Culture Through Japanese Dance (Wesleyan University Press). A student of Japanese dance since the age of four and a performer, as well as an associate professor in the arts department at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, NY, Ms. Hahn explores the identity of the dance through culture, a teacher's wisdom and the body and how that experience transformed her own identity.
 
 More than just another how-to book, Ms. Hahn reveals in a very personal way in which dance and music of a community are reflected outward to define that community and how that nuanced cultural tradition defines the dancer. Examining the sensory way in which minute details of culture, music and dance are passed from teacher to student, Hahn is a veritable font of information about the personal journey of learning and understanding the nihon buyo. Personalizing this journey with details like the chimes that welcome her as she enters the dance studio to shoes lined up by other dancers to the changing into the yukata, or cotton kimono worn for dance practice, Ms. Hahn makes the exploration intimate and culls a curiosity out of the reader.

A new genre called Dub was created in Jamaica in the 1970s when recording engineers "deconstructed" popular songs. Dub is in reality the art of remixing, something which became popular a decade later and has been a common practice in the recording industry since then. 

On Dub: Soundscapes and Shattered Songs in Jamaican Reggae Michael Veal sets the context for the Dub revolution by explaining the roots of modern Jamaican music, from mento, through ska and finally Reggae. There is also fascinating information about early recording studios in Jamaica and the role of DJs and producers.