A lot of heavy stuff happening in the world… We also need to seek music, fun, joy as we discover the variety that is our world. Here is the 2010 hit – Raksit Leila (Leila’s Dance) – from the Lebanese alternative rock band, Mashrou’ Leila. They have reportedly disbanded under intense pressure for their celebration of queer identities…

Let’s listen to one of my favorite bands, The Beths, out of New Zealand, with their 2018 hit, “Future Me Hates Me.” They opened with this last night in Columbus. What does it have to do with our course? Well, the distinction between me (today) and me (future) calls to mind the temporal shift of modernity explained by Benedict Anderson in his discussion of cosmology and history… Or, it’s just a bit of fun to get us going I the morning!

Let’s acknowledge: rather steamy and suggestive content for your world history course! But the 2021 superhit (530m views and counting) from the Puerto Rican artist Bad Bunny and the Spanish (or should we say Catalan?) star Rosalía can tell us something about the cross-currents and exchanges of “Latin” music today. “Tú y yo juntos creando un imperio”

From a couple years ago – marking the  after several years the brilliant Belgian/Rwandan artist, Stromae – “Santé” (or Cheers) celebrates workers who do the dirty work (of one kind or another) and don’t usually have their own chance to celebrate… It was a bit of an homage to the “essential workers” of the pandemic…