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Carnival

performers get ready

Spanish Carnival floats told to drop sexist songs 

Arts, Culture & Media

In some small towns in northeast Spain, organizers for the Carnival holiday have told participants that they’ll risk losing public subsidies if they play songs with lyrics that denigrate women. Most people like the idea in theory, but in practice, the measure is proving tough to apply. Because with pop music, finding the line between sexist and sexy can be vexing.

Women in green and yellow costumes dance

With no Carnival, Haiti’s musicians lose more than their stage

A reveler takes part in the Cordao de Boitata party during pre-Carnival festivities in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil on Feb. 19.

Dozens of cities across Brazil are canceling Carnival

Culture
A masquerader during 2013 Carnival in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago. This year, a Japanese tourist's murder spurred the mayor's resignation and a conversation about women's rights.

Is the death of a Japanese tourist at Trinidad’s Carnival a symptom of a society with a problem?

Culture
A health worker stands in the Sambadrome as he sprays insecticide to combat the Aedes aegypti mosquitoes that transmit the Zika virus, in Rio de Janeiro. Inspectors are spraying the insecticide around the Sambadrome, the outdoor grounds where thousands of

The Zika virus has Brazil fumigating the Sambadrome in advance of Carnival

Health
El Diablo on the streets of Portobelo, Panama.

This Panamanian Carnival tradition manages to make blackface ‘playful’ and ’emancipatory’

Music

In Portobelo, Panama, a local spin on the Carnival holiday celebrates Africans who escaped from Spanish slavery. But while it features “Diablos” with whips and kids wearing blackface, an American academic who works with locals says it’s a powerful, celebratory metaphor.

After the Quake: Music, Politics and Spirituality in Haiti

For this exclusive Afropop Worldwide Hip Deep report, producer Ned Sublette travels to Port-au-Prince, where he checks in with bandleader Richard Morse of RAM, and with Lolo and Manzé Beaubrun of Boukman Eksperyans, both of whom produced hotly controversial carnival songs … Read more »

After the Quake: Music, Politics and Spirituality in Haiti

For this exclusive Afropop Worldwide Hip Deep report, producer Ned Sublette travels to Port-au-Prince, where he checks in with bandleader Richard Morse of RAM, and with Lolo and Manzé Beaubrun of Boukman Eksperyans, both of whom produced hotly controversial carnival songs … Read more »

Featured Artists: Winter 2014 Dance Party!

It’s Carnival right now in Trinidad, Haiti, Brazil, New Orleans…and  NYC, with Afropop Worldwide! In the words of Bootsy Collins, this week’s show, Winter 2014 Dance Party, ”Ain’t nothin’ but a party y’all.” So get down, get funky and shake a … Read more »

Carnival 2014 Mixtape Roundup

Chance are, you’re either at work, hung over, sporting some ash on your forehead, or some combination of the three right now. Carnival is over, today is an Ash Wednesday, and to some, it seems that the music has stopped. … Read more »