NY Times Covers Riot Artists at GlobalFEST

The Colombian band Puerto Candelaria, from Medellín, poured on the party act more thickly. Its foundation is the Colombian cumbia, which it applied to both its own tunes — speedy chromatic zigzags — and to gimmicky imports like MC Hammer’s “U Can’t Touch This.” It had dance routines and audience participation bits that were crowd pleasing but superficial.

Globalfest also included more earnest performers. Emel Mathlouthi, a songwriter from Tunisia, played moody rock songs with a band that included both electronics and a traditional drum. She dedicated “Libertá,” a song praising the power of pen and paper against dictatorship and narrow minds, to the Charlie Hebdo journalists murdered in Paris.

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