You've most likely armchair traveled with us to Senegal, Mali, Cuba and let's not forget New York City. For this edition we head off the beaten path to bring you the music of Ghana, Ethiopia, Egypt, Suriname and we even go to Las Vegas, our first stop.

We went to Vegas to report on an historic event, a concert attended by 5,000 music fans called "Two Tenors of Arabic Music". Opening up the show was the musical director of the evening, violin and oud virtuoso, Simon Shaheen and his group, Kantara. They played Simon's composition, "Dance Mediteranea":

The two great Arab tenors in the show were Wadi' al-Safi, the prominent Lebanese singer and composer and Sabah Fakhri, the Syrian master singer of classical Arab music that we featured in our show. Find out more about him:

Sabah Fakhri

One of the great tenor voices of the Arab world, Sabah Fakhri (born 1933, in Aleppo, Syria) is known for his strong vocals and impeccable execution of harmony. He’s credited with the popularization of “Muwashahat” - Syria’s most celebrated classical form, where songs are based on a poetic metre emerged in Moorish Spain, though its music probably owes more to Ottoman style - among several new generations of listeners. He’s backed by a band modelled more on the Egyptian-style string orchestra.
Famous all over the Arab World and beyond, Fakhri is considered the epitome of authentic Arabic Tarab by many admirers. He was also a member of the Syrian parliament as a representative of artists and was awarded the Syrian Order of Merit by the president for his role in reviving the country’s artistic heritage.

myspace.com/sabahfakhri
last.fm/music/Sabah+Fakhri
listenarabic.com/Sabah+Fakhri+Songs/
maroc.net/newrc/sb/sabahfakhri.htm

Next on our trip, we hit up four countries we rarely go and highlight some artists you're gonna want to listen:

Ghana

The West African country of Ghana became independent from the United Kingdom in 1957. In pre-colonial times, the region was divided by Akan kingdoms. The Mande-Gur speaking groups in the north of the country established several Islamized states.
Today the country is inhabited by almost 25 million people, which are divided between Akan (45.3%), Mole-Dagbon (15.2%), Ewe (11.7%), Ga-Dangme (7.3%) and other ethnic groups. Most people are Christian (68.8%) and Muslim (15.8%). The official language is English, but Asante, Ewe and Fante are spoken by a larger number of people.
Ghana’s quintessential music is called “highlife”, an urban dance style that dominated the country’s scene for more than half a century, setting the tone for 1940s and 50s. The glory days of highlife saw the rise of bands like ET Mensah, King Bruce, Jerry Hansen's Ramblers International Dance Band. Later highlife stars include Pat Thomas, Nana Ampadu, C.K. Mann and many others. Gospel highlife bands, connected to Ghana's thriving churches, are very popular. Today, the dominant sound enjoyed by Ghanaian youth is hiplife.

Contemporary music from Ghana: http://www.ghanamusic.com/
Ghanian music, radio and videos: http://www.galizur.com/ 

Dr K Gyasi (The Highlife Boss) - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-4QsrjFDgo
Pan African Orchestra - http://www.panafricanorchestra.com/
Pat Thomas - http://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/people/pop-up.php?ID=236

Discover the country: http://www.touringghana.com/ 

Ethiopia

Unlike many African countries, Ethiopia maintained its freedom from colonial rule. During the 19th century, the country went through a succession of civil wars. The Emperor Haile Selassie came to the throne in 1930, intending to modernize the country, and was deposed in 1974. He was replaced by a military dictatorship that went on to experience bloody coups, wide-scale drought and massive refugee problems.  In 1991 a coalition of rebel forces called the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) toppled the regime. The country adopted a constitution in 1994 and held the first multiparty elections on the following year. Despite the recent conflicts with Eritrea, the country has come a long way, but the history of suffering is imprinted in the “Achinoy”, the melancholy quality present in the musical tradition. A lot has changed since the fall of the military regime. Established artists started to tour abroad, meanwhile a new generation of pop singers surfaced bringing names like Hebiste Tiruneh, Yihuneh Belaye, Chache Tadesse and Hamelmal Abate to fame. One of the biggest shifts is that long-dominant Amharic music now competes with neotraditional styles from regions like Tigray, Gonder and Oromo.
There are aproximately 75 ethnic groups in Ethiopia. The population of 90 million is currently divided between the following ethnic groups: Oromo (34.5%), Amhara (26.9%) and others. Their religion is Orthodox (43.5%), Muslim (33.9%) and Protestant (18.6%). The Amhara are the dominant language group, powerful in trade and government. They have mostly dominated popular music as well. Since ancient times, the azmari musicians would recite oral stories accompanied by the krar (lyre), masenqo (one-string fiddle) and washint (flute). Well into the ‘70s, military brass bands accompanied recording artists like Tilahoun Gessesse, Neway Debebe and Mahmoud Ahmed. These pioneers sang both traditional and popular repertoires to the delight of dancers doing the "iskita" (dance that envolves shaking shoulders, heaving chests and snapping their heads). They fashioned a unique pop tradition honoring the old "tchik-tchik-ka" rhythm.

The special characteristic of Ethipian music is the use of a five-note, pentatonic scale with large intervals between some of the notes.
 

Listen to Aster Aweke and other Ethiopian artists on this site: http://www.addiszefen.com/artists/aster-aweke.php

Website and playlist on Ethiopian Music

Aster Aweke's "Checheho" 

Discover the country: http://realethiopia.com/ 

Suriname

Situaded in the north coast of South America, Suriname has a population of 500 thousand inhabitants and it is the smallest country in the continent. First explored by the Spaniards in the 16th century and then settled by the English in the mid-17th century, Suriname became a Dutch colony in 1667. Till this day their oficial langue is Dutch, but Sranan Tongo is the language of the people and English and Portuguese are widely spoken as well. With the abolition of slavery in 1863, workers were brought in from India and Java. Independence from the Netherlands was granted in 1975. 
The major ethnic groups are comprised of Indian descendants (37%), creole (31%), Javanese (15%), Maroons (descendant of runaway african slaves), Amerindian (10%), and others. The predominant religions are Hindu (27.4%), Protestant (25.2 %), Roman Catholic (22.8%) and Muslim (19.6%).
The immigration brought a great diversity to Suriname’s cultural scenario. Every ethnic group has its own unique dance style with a diversity of colorful and elegant costumes. This is especially true of the Javanese and Hindustani population groups. Indigenous dances are characterized by a wide variety of repetitive movements and the Maroon, on the contrary, are tipified by their singing, drumbeat and body movements that show strengh and perseverance. In Suriname one can enjoy a variety of local music styles in addition to international genres such as ‘kaseko’ - a rhythmically complex fusion of numerous popular and folk styles from Europe, Africa and the Americas with enfasis on percussion and brass instruments - and ‘baithak gana’. The Indians developed a style of singing called “tan”, which is unique to the Indian community in Suriname and Guyana.

Selection of kaseko music from Suriname available for streaming:
http://generationbass.com/2009/04/19/kaseko-from-suriname/

Discover the country: http://www.surinametourism.com/

Egypt

Egypt was home to one of the world’s great civilizations, favored by the richness of the Nile River and the geographical semi-isolation provided by deserts to the east and west. A series of dynasties ruled in Egypt for three millennia B.C., later replaced by Persians, Greeks, Romans and Byzantines. The Arabs introduced Islam in the 7th century and ruled for the next six centuries followed by a local military caste, the Mamluks, then the Ottoman Empire. Britain took control of Egypt’s government in 1882, and even though independence came in 1922, Egypt only acquired full sovereignty in 1952.
Egypt’s rapidly growing population has reached 82 million, the largest in the Arab world. The overwhelming majority is Muslim (90%, of which mostly are Sunni) and speaks Arabic.
From the 20th century onwards, Egypt has dominated the Arab musical world. Arab singers flocked to Cairo pursuing success. And it were the singers that were accorded overriding respect given the importance of the word in Arab culture, where poetry is the highest of all forms. Egypt’s music industry covers everything from folk (saiyidi and sawahili are a couple of the many traditions) to high classical music and iconic pop. Among the offspring of superstars are names like Umm Kalthum, Mohammed Abd el-Wahaab, Abd el-Halim Hafez and Sayed Darweesh. Today, pop music is divided into shaabi, typically associated with the working class but now “cleaned up” by stars like Hakim and Amr Diab, and al-jil ("generation"), smoother and lighter than shaabi, mixing elements of more traditional Arab pop with production-heavy techno.

List of Egyptian radio stations

Mohamed Mounir playlist on YouTube 

Discover the country: http://www.egypt.travel/