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  • People's Picks: A Polyrhythmic Tour with Wild Belle's Elliot Bergman

    Whether in the sparse reggae-influenced beats of sibling-duo Wild Belle or in the expansive horns of “post-afrobeat” band NOMO, Elliot Bergman infuses every project with his love of the bright polyrhythms of West African and Caribbean music. There was always music around for Bergman: his mother, Susan, wrote songs for her four children, including “The Little Bird,” a tune Elliot would later pass on to Elizabeth Mitchell to record. In this month’s People’s Picks, Bergman takes us from Oklahoma to Jamaica to Indonesia to Kenya to Nigeria, whirling through a world of Smithsonian Folkways sounds.

    Listen to the playlist and read Elliot Bergman’s annotations here.

    People's Picks: A Polyrhythmic Tour with Wild Belle's Elliot Bergman | Smithsonian Folkways Recordings