I’m a big fan of cross-cultural mashups, probably because I view myself as sort of third culture kid lite. If you’re not familiar with the TCK term, in my mind it describes people like my husband, who have one foot in Culture A and one in Culture B, and somehow mix them together into something new and wonderful. He physically moved from one cultural context to another when his family left what was then the Soviet Union. I had a different type of cross-cultural exchange, spending a year in Finland at age 16, and then a college semester in Russia as part of my nine (yes, *nine*) years of Russian language study. One of my early techniques for language learning was listening to tapes of Russian pop music, but I was introduced to “world music” very early on.

My father has had hugely ranging musical tastes in my lifetime. Chronologically, he went from sea shanteys and Irish folk to Afropop (thanks, public radio!) to Afrocuban to Latin to Country & Western. I think these days he’s mostly listening to Latin, to practice his Spanish. My mother listens mainly to Western classical, but has occasional bouts of Brazilian music.

I still listen to a lot more kwaito, throat-singing, gypsy punk and kumbia than Lady Gaga or Katy Perry. But there’s a lot more out there than just Traditional Music from an Exotic Locale. There’s a lot of cultural bleedover and I am fascinated by the musical mashups that are out there. I started thinking about this recently after reading an article on throatboxing in Nunavut.

Here are five third culture tracks I think are particularly noteworthy.

1. Throatboxing with Nelson Tagoona & Nunavut throat singers

Influences: beat-boxing, Inuit throat singing

What you are seeing is a pair of women performing Inuit throat-singing in a traditional style (i.e. always in a pair, face to face, playing off each other’s rhythms) and accompanying them, throatboxer Nelson Tagoona. Stick around to the end of the clip, and he breaks out the harmonica. Tagoona is just 17, by the way.
See also: Options 3 & 5 on this list. Joik singing from the Sami (aka Laplanders) or Tlingit rap – rap gets around, yo.

2. Queen Bee from Taj Mahal’s Kulanjan album

Influences: Delta blues, West African griot

The Kulanjan album is a collaboration between American bluesman Taj Mahal, and a number of West African musicians, including Toumani Diabaté, Basekou Kouyate, Kasse Mady Dibaté and others.
See also: Youssou N’Dour, Baaba Maal, Ali Farka Toure (who you may recognize from PRI’s The World), and the greater body of Taj Mahal’s music, including his early collaborations with Ry Cooder as the Rising Sons.

3. Bugotak – Мы – сибиряки! [We’re Siberians!]

Influences: Central Asian/Siberian throat singing, Russian rock, classic Western rock

Bugotak is contemporary Siberian rock, out of Buryatia. 75% his music sounds like other Russian rock, but then there’s that throat singing element, the updated tonal jaw harp, the bizarre animations, and the throatsinging covers of Western classics, like House of the Rising Sun. I had trouble picking which of his youtube videos to share; check out all of them here.
See also: Genghis Blues, Yat-Kha (who also do some Western covers), the Back Tuva Future album,  Chirgichin

4. Seth Augustus – Slim Sam

Influences: Blues, Central Asian throat singing, Tom Waits

Seth Augustus was mentored by Paul Pena, and blends Tuvan style throat singing into Tom Waits style growling, dark, amazingness.
See also: Tom Waits, Billy’s Band (that would be a Russian band, that does a lot of Tom Waits covers), Paul Pena

5. Project Trio

Influences: Western Classical, Beatboxing

A few years ago I found this series of beatboxing flute clips on youtube and thought they were awesome. This year, I rediscovered them, and learned that the flautist is now part of Project Trio, putting a new spin on classical music, and doing a lot of kids’ music camps. I like their Peter & the Wolf rendition.
See also: Portland Cello Project, Vanessa Mae, Lindsey Stirling, or David Garret for modern twists on classical and classical twists on modern. (I like strings, you guys!)

This is just a small sampling; there are whole mashup genres out there. Try kwaito from South Africa, for instance, where artists like Mandoza and TKZee took American hip-hop influences and made them their own. You may already be familiar with gypsy punk stars Gogol Bordello, but check into Kultur Shock, too. In my mind, gypsy punk bleeds over to the high powered carnival amazingness that is Balkan brass (Brazz Menazeri, Orkestr Zirkonium, the Bucharest Drinking Team, Fanfara Vagabontu, Fanfare Ciocarlia, etc.) and from there to some interesting Eastern European disko (i.e. Shantel). If you go follow the punk, rather than gypsy, direction you might end up in Celtic punk, with the Dropkick Murphys and Firkin. Keep going into folk music and head north to Scandinavia, where Sami joik singers are mixing in heavy metal, or jump over the Atlantic and head south to pick up Ry Cooder’s TexMex Irish album San Patricio with The Chieftains.

There’s a ton of great stuff out there. What would you add to this list?