I have a big announcement, here it is: I will be retiring the Tropicology radio show. That’s right, I have decided that now is the time for me to move on from producing this weekly radio broadcast. Next week is going to be my final week of preparing new content. I have deeply enjoyed all the years of bringing this music to your ears, but I have reached a point in my own life where I need to be devoting my time and energy to other things. There is a time for all things, that’s a rule to live by… and this is the time for Tropicology to say goodbye.

I have today’s show and next week’s show to say goodbye, listeners. I want to leave you something to remember me by. I’ve tried to reach through my collection to find great vintage tracks that have not ever been released for audiences in the United States. These are the tracks that you are not likely to hear anywhere else but Tropicology. I’m not able to cover all Tropicology areas of interest in these next couple weeks; this is how I’ve decided to wrap things up: this week I’m playing a farewell rarities jukebox mix; next week is a farewell rarities good vibes mix. This week is music for dancing and celebration; next week is music for headphones and lounging. Today’s playlist will begin with a set of international tracks with a touch of that all-American rock guitar vibe, then I’ve got a smoking set of descargas to end the first hour. I’ll play some of my country style favorites to begin hour two, including cumbia, forro, and carimbo. Then we’ll hear clubby pop and funk at the end of the line. In the mic breaks today I’ll tell you a bit about why each of these tracks is special to me. This is part one of the Tropicology farewell tour

I am Encyclopedia Sound, delighted to be playing another XRAY FM Fund Drive victory lap today. This fall we passed our goal of $75,000 raised for the Fall Fund Drive, keeping our radio operations in the black through the winter. Your memberships and donations help us continue to serve this mission of putting a microphone to all the best news, views, and music that our community has to offer. But your memberships and donations also help us expand our service to the community with improvements such as strengthening our FM signal and expanding it to more markets. Today I am celebrating another successful fund drive with music from the French West Indies. Thank you XRAY listeners for another successful fund drive.

I love to own beautiful sounding audiophile pressings of my favorite albums, and this summer the Mr Bongo label did us all a favor by issuing a deluxe audiophile pressing of one of my favorite albums from Brazil, a self-titled debut from an artist known for producing and arranging music rather than making his own music. The artist is Arthur Verocai, and this half speed mastered LP reissue was engineered at Abbey Road studios to mark the fiftieth anniversary of the original album release in 1972. The album reminds me alot of the early Shuggie Otis albums Freedom Flight and Inspiration Information… there are some catchy funk and soul hooks, but there are also some deep emo pieces. Everything somehow feels very intimate and personal, and it’s all tied together by the lush ambitious orchestrations of Verocai. Each of my 4 musical sets today will begin with a track from this classic album, then I’ll follow up with more Brazilian sounds from the 70s in that sophisticated psychedelic vein. This is a Tropicology Arthur Verocai tribute episode for the Fall Fund Drive 2022… on XRAY FM.

Today we have a full show devoted to the musical influence of Cuba, with a focus on sounds in the jazz spectrum. Some tracks will be like walking into a jazz club in Cuba…that is to say, they have a cool swing vibe... other tracks will be like seeing a Cuban performance at an international jazz festival because these songs bristle with experimental energy.

Today we are following Latin music innovations from the Americas… mostly from Cuba… as they found their way back to Africa in the mid-twentieth century. There was a craze for latin music that took hold, to varying degrees, in virtually every country in West and Central Africa spanning 4 decades, only diminishing over the past 25 years or so. We will hear Afro Latin sounds stretching from the 1950s to the 1980s. There are 11 countries represented in today’s set: starring roles today for both of the Congos, with support from Sierra Leone, Ivory Coast, Guinea, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Mali, Benin, Nigeria, and Senegal.

This is the music of Northeastern Brazil, the hot and dry region extending from the country’s Atlantic seaboard West to the edges of the Amazon rainforest. There is a thin strip of land along the coast that does receive rain; this was the first land colonized by the Portuguese in the 16th Century. Enslaved peoples from Africa were brought here to work on sugar plantations, while native peoples in this area were displaced to the less desirable land to the West. The capital cities of all northeastern states are all on the coast, where there is a mix of European, African, and native cultures; as you pass to the West, however, the population shows more native heritage, along with the descendants of escaped African workers who formed outlaw communities here. This dry region is today known in Brazil as “sertao,” or backlands. And we'll here other regional sounds at the end of the show... carimbo from the Amazonian Northern part of the country.

Today we are back to Africa… the theme will be folk music from Africa. The folk music from Africa I most commonly play is the ancient songs of the Niger River valley area, including Mali. Here folk music has survived in the modern era on the strength of the griot tradition, in which music is passed down through generations of musician families. In other parts of Africa, however, folk music traditions have often struggled to survive the past half century of social and cultural change. Folk music is often pushed aside in favor of more modern and foreign-influenced sounds. Today we are going to hear some folk-influenced sounds from all around the continent: Cameroon, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Angola… folk music as well from the continental powerhouses Nigeria and The Congo… even unusual destinations such as Gabon and South Africa on the show today.

Today’s show is the fall kickoff for Tropicology… I like to keep things pretty loosy-groovy in the summer, but fall gives me the occasion to broaden that emotional palette and play some moodier music. This year’s fall kickoff will be one of those little diversions in the Tropicology musical mission… it so happens that the past year has been a big year for reissues of South African jazz music. Normally I save the South African jazz for Thanksgiving, but this year I’m breaking out an early episode because there are so many new releases to cover. We’ll hear a range of emotions and moods on the show today, all music made by black South Africans during the Apartheid era. South African jazz will be the theme on this year’s Tropicology fall kickoff.

Today’s theme will be upbeat music from Africa for the last weekend of summer. I’ll be starting out with a few oldies, but this is not an oldies set… I’ll quickly transition into fairly modern sounds, a mix of 70s, 80s, and current releases. We’ll be all over the map today: leadership from Ghana and Nigeria for this set, but we’ll also hear from Cameroon, Zambia, Mali, Benin, Gabon, The Congo, Sao Tome and Principe, and we’ll hear afrobeat orchestras from Europe and Canada. The opening set will be a bit of an arty affair, kicking off with those oldies then embracing some international pop influences like reggae. The second set will focus on Soukous, a dance music that came out of the Congo in the 70s and conquered much of Africa in the 80s. Set 3 kicks off with some jazzy soul sounds, then we move into an afrobeat theme that I will follow to the end of the show. You’ll get a nice broad range of sounds from Africa today, lots of uplifting vibes. This will be a Labor Day summer sendoff good vibe mix coming up on today’s episode of Tropicology.

Today’s show takes us back to those neighbors of ours who we know so little about… Caribbean islands in our own backyard that we never visit, in fact we almost never even think about them. I’m referring to the French West Indies: in particular, the islands of Guadeloupe and Martinique, and the nation of Haiti. These are some of the few places in the Caribbean where French is spoken, and they have developed a musical culture that is distinctly different from neighboring cultures speaking Spanish and English. Of all the music I play on Tropicology, I would say that the French West Indies has the music that is least exposed in the United States, and as a result it can be hard music for gringos to place. Today is going to be a nice sampling of the genre.