That urban-funky vein runs deeper than I’d thought

At the barbershop yesterday, the satellite-television video channel
aired a pleasing mix of songs while I was waiting for my mop-chop,
including Talking Heads, “BurningDown The House”; Brazilian Girls, “GoodTime”; and Little Jackie, “TheWorld Should Revolve Around Me.” I recognized the first and last
ones, and “Good Time,” which I acquired over the summer, seemed sort
of familiar, but I didn’t know any of the four or five other songs
that the TV played.

 The troubling thing about this unprompted experiment is that the vein
of music that stretches from Talking Heads to Imani Coppola is one of
my favorites: call it multiculti urban dance funk or something like
that. You may blame my New York City childhood for this longstanding
interest. So how is it that more than half the songs played in the
set, all of which I liked, I didn’t even recognize?

 Either there are hundreds of new records in this vein that come out
every year, where I only get the chance to listen to a more or less
randomly selected dozen; or the songs that were played on this channel
were popular somewhere else than in New York City, although they all
(especially the videos) consciously show off their New York
influences; or I’ve been slacking and there are lots of new good
records out there that I would have stumbled upon if I hadn’t been
down here at the Secret City for so long.

  
Talking Heads:

 Brazilian Girls: the video is there, but “not available in your
country.” Hmm. What country is this? How does Youtube know? When I log
on to google, the page comes up in Ukrainian; does it think I’m in
Ukraine, then?

 Little Jackie: