Folkalist Records, a New World Music Label

Folkalist Records is a newly created record label in the world music sphere. Folkalist focuses on showcasing music originating from the Global South, featuring artists who combine traditional folk elements with contemporary expressions. Founded by Kavita Shah, a renowned vocalist, composer, polyglot, researcher, and educator, Folkalist Records aims to celebrate hybridity, the interplay of traditional and modern, and the exceptional capabilities of the human voice.

The label’s debut release, Cape Verdean Blues by Kavita Shah, pays homage to the iconic singer Cesária Évora and the enchanting Cape Verdean archipelago. This 12-track album, born out of seven years of immersion in São Vicente, Cape Verde, in collaboration with local master musicians like the legendary guitarist Bau, captures the essence of Cape Verdean culture, particularly its profound sense of longing known as sodade. Shah, drawing from her own diasporic experiences as the child of Indian immigrants, infuses her personal narrative into the music.

Following this successful debut, Folkalist Records is set to release Canciones en Blanco y Negro (Songs in Black and White) by Argentine cantora and composer Juana Luna on August 9. Luna’s album, dedicated to wanderers and unsung women from her lineage, features intricate arrangements commissioned by the New York Philharmonic Orchestra. Luna, influenced by her global travels, explores themes of ancestral connection and personal exploration through a fusion of traditional Argentine folk melodies and original compositions. Her performance at the Lincoln Center Atrium in New York City on September 7 will mark the celebration of this upcoming release.

Reflecting on her inspiration for founding Folkalist, Kavita Shah recounts a transformative experience during a layover in Addis Ababa, where she encountered the seamless fusion of diverse folk genres by Ethiopian jazz musician Mulatu Astatke and local artists. This encounter crystallized Shah’s affinity for cultural intersections and her artistic mission to promote music rooted in these crossroads. Thus, the term “folkalist” encapsulates Shah’s ethos of embracing cultural diversity and facilitating musical exchange in these pivotal spaces of encounter.

“As a vocalist, composer, child of immigrants, and woman of color, I have always been passionate about creating spaces of inclusion,” says Shah, an advocate of gender and racial equity in the arts who was a founding member of the We Have Voice and Ori-Gen collectives.

“The ‘world music’ industry has done a great service by increasing the awareness of previously underrepresented musical traditions within an international marketplace dominated by the Global North. But it has, at times, also served to solidify binary concepts of ‘us’ vs. ‘them’, ‘primitive’ vs. ‘modern’, and ‘authentic’ vs. ‘innovative,’ leading to the paradoxical effect of pigeonholing the very music it was globalizing,” says Shah.

“But traditions are not static. History shows us that they have always been in flux, shaped by constant contact with other societies and ideas. This dynamism is all the more true in our current age of hyperconnectivity. Folkalist strives to elevate music that thrives in the fertile space between genres, music that transcends boundaries and binaries, music that speaks to the reality of today’s global citizens who do not possess one whole culture, but fragments of many.

“With Folkalist, my dream is not just to highlight marginalized music and music-makers, especially women, but to build a digital platform through which artists and audiences everywhere–from Ethiopia to Argentina, Cabo Verde to India–can find one another, discover novel connections, and in so doing, create a new type of global music community.”

Folkalist Records is accepting submissions from new artists here with a deadline of May 1, 2024, folkalistrecords.com/contact