Yahritza Martinez, 16, went from apple picking in rural Washington, to becoming a TikTok sensation and chart-topping musician. But her career nearly came to a halt after her comments about Mexico went viral. Despite the controversy, Martinez played at a major Mexican Independence Day concert in Mexico City — but some fans were not yet ready to embrace her.
Mugre Sur is known for their deeply political songs — and also their sense of humor. They’re tackling Ecuador’s political turmoil in their upcoming album, “Sudamericamente.”
People of faith gathered in Chicago this week to talk about something that doesn’t sound very religious. And that’s authoritarianism. It wasn’t a traditional political rally for a specific candidate. They’re taking part in the Parliament of the World’s Religions, an interfaith convening that first took place in the late 1800s. People from many different religious traditions took part.
In Colombia's capital city Bogotá, pedestrians need to watch out for loose slabs of pavement they can trip over, or wobbly tiles that get their feet wet or splash dirty water on their pants. But some activists have started trying to shame the city into making repairs more quickly by covering the broken spots with pink paint and black Xs.
Thirty years ago, war raged in the city of Sarajevo in the former Yugoslavia, where Gino Yevdjevich was once a pop artist. In our latest segment of “Movement,” our series on music and migration, we hear how this conflict changed Gino’s life and led him to create the Seattle-based punk band Kultur Shock.
As part of our summer series, "Planet Hip Hop," we take you to South Korea, where hip-hop found its footing in the 1990s. Haekyung Um has written extensively about Korean pop culture and also teaches global popular music and Asian music industries at the University of Liverpool. She joined The World’s host Marco Werman to talk about the evolution of hip-hop and rap in South Korea.
The Nordic nation is the third-largest exporter of pop music in the world, after the US and the UK. But musicians in Sweden are worried that the country's changing political climate could endanger this great Swedish success story.
After four years of pandemic shutdowns, the grand Gion Matsuri festival resumed in all its glory this July, with bells, gongs and flutes chiming atop massive floats decked out in lavish tapestries and treasures.
This summer, we are taking you on a global journey to celebrate the 50th anniversary of hip-hop. In Senegal, hip-hop has evolved from something of a fad, to an influential force for social change.
The Moomins are troll-like characters from a Finnish children's book series that became popular around the world starting in the 1950s. But they never really took off in the United States. The author Tove Jansson rejected Walt Disney's offer to buy the brand. Now, a bookstore chain in the US is trying to popularize the Moomins here.
Noam Tsuriely is a 28-year-old Jewish Israeli hip-hop artist from Jerusalem He says he likes to rap in both Hebrew and Arabic to get Israelis and Palestinians to learn both languages, so they can understand each other better. Tsuriely's story is the latest in The World's summer "Planet Hip Hop" series.