Banning Eyre, senior editor of Afropop.org, shines the spotlight on the best world music this year.
His favorites include music from Mali, Brazil, the Dominican Republic, Peru and Senegal, but Watina, the new album from Andy Palacio, stood above the rest. Palacio is of the Garifuna culture in Belize. Watina brings together Garifuna musicians of several generations from Belize, Guatemala and Honduras in an effort to preserve the language and culture of the Garifuna people. Eyre calls the album a breakthrough for Afro-Central American folk-pop.
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