“Poet, cartoonist and loudmouth” (not to mention Flarf SEAL assassin) Gary Sullivan’s doing a great thing over at Bodega Pop, sharing music and videos he’s picked up at bodegas around NYC in recent years:
When I moved to New York City in 1997 I began to notice that bodegas run by people from different countries sometimes stocked CDs and DVDs of music and film from those countries.
The music I’ve collected from these bodegas can almost never be found in the “World Music” sections of the few remaining places to buy CDs in the U.S.
And you can mostly forget about finding it on iTunes (or cheapo MP3 sites like Soundike).
Though, oddly, many of these artists can be found on YouTube; where that is the case, I’ve embedded a video or two to watch while you download.
I’m currently enjoying Grace Chang’s Mambo Girl stylings. Visit Bodega Pop for more on Grace Chang and a YouTube clip of the opening scene of 1957’s “Mambo Girl,” along with a slew of fantastic pop from around the world, from vintage stuff like Chang to current Asian hip-hop and rock.
Chang is a fascinating figure; born in Nanjing in 1934, raised in Shanghai, where she studied Beijing Opera, and off to Taiwan in 1949, she experienced some of the worst times China has known, and yet… she became Mambo Girl, creating “a heartwarming portrait of youthful innocence that is astonishingly simple and yet completely captivating.”
Here’s another scene from the film, this one from YouKu, where the entire movie is also available (no English subtitles, but then again, no GFW)…