cool stuff number one.

One of the cool bands my parents introduced me to as a kid was a band called Deep Forest. I remember loving their CD and listening to it repeatedly. However, the music was different from most of the usual music of American popular culture; the group predominantly used sounds of Africa to create their tunes.

Here's a brief bio (courtesy of wikipedia):
Deep Forest is a musical group consisting of two French musicians, Michel Sanchez and Eric Mouquet. They compose a new kind of world music, sometimes called ethnic electronica, mixing ethnic with electronic sounds and dance beats or chillout beats. Their sound has been described as an "ethno-introspective ambient world music." Michel Sanchez came up with the idea of mixing the native Baka pygmy spoken word with modern music after hearing on-site recordings of these tribes conversing. Along with Eric Mouquet they created the project Deep Forest. Their first self-titled album (nominated for a Grammy) was released in 1992, with "Sweet Lullaby" being the smash single which would put Deep Forest on the musical map (UK Top 10 hit). The song "Sweet Lullaby" is adapted from a traditional song from the Solomon Islands. The album Deep Forest was dance-driven and the samples were heavily digitised and edited.

Though the music was heavily edited, you can definitely hear the African roots. This is the song, "Sweet Lullaby."


And, just because Deep Forest is so unique and cool, here's another video. This one was my favorite of theirs when I was a child. It's called "Savana Dance."



This is a video of a indoor drum corp called Blast!. In this video they perform a piece called Marimba Spiritual, written by Minoru Miki to express his anger for the number of people who died in Africa from starvation.


I also thought this was pretty interesting and impressive. So just for fun...a beatboxing didgeridoo player!=]