Natacha Atlas, Halim (Nation) 9+
In a way, Natacha Atlas might represent all that is wrong with the trend to appropriate a mish-mash of styles and repackage them in pretty boxes for yuppies in the name of cultural pluralism. 'World Music,' feh! The only way I can defend this is that as opposed to most of the generic world music stuff sounding watered-down, this transcends it. While Natacha Atlas is Egyptian, she has taken liberties to appropriate a wide variety of Eastern and Middle Eastern styles. She does so with the help of the pan-cultural Transglobal Underground, one of the few, if not the only band to combine world music with dance and hip-hop beats and not suck. I think it's time she take her band and fly her multicultural butt over to America and rock the house.
