In the last 30 years, a profusion of American hip-hop songs have sampled 1970s Brazilian music, to the point it has become a familiar trope. In this presentation, I’ll clarify some of the material and historical reasons for this newfound connection based on ethnographic interviews with producers, DJs, and collectors. First, I’ll describe the infrastructure surrounding the sampling of Brazilian music to show how it happened in terms of explicit social mechanics—labels, stores, venues, channels of communication and exchange, technological relay tendencies, etc—seeking to form a factual picture of the concrete affordances that caused the approximation of the genres. In this part, I will pay particular attention to the logic of reissue culture (Novak 2011), its ethics of representation and discovery, and the role they have played in the recent elevation of 1970s MPB (música popular brasileira). Secondly, I will analyze the history of hip-hop and MPB for musical congruences, attending to the ways Brazilian culture has been internationally commercialized before, influencing jazz fusion (Cross 2017), which is the main node directly intersecting the two genres. In this case, the new trend of American absorption of Brazilian music might not be that far from the exotic exportation of samba with Carmen Miranda in the 1940s (Tinhorão 2015), the international formulation of bossa nova and Tropicália in the 1960s (Veloso 1997), or the cosmopolitan renaissance of world music in the 1980s (Feld 1995). I hope my presentation can trace those relations by simply mapping the actual networks that underlie such sampling.

Lebanon’s history is often framed as cyclically violent, and its present and futures foreclosed by this seemingly interminable pattern. Citing what some have called a governmentally sanctioned public amnesia about the events of Lebanon’s 1975–1990 civil wars, artist and writer Walid Sadek proposes that the way out of this temporal loop is to search, through expressive culture, for what he calls a “habitable chronotope” (2011:49). In other words, the issue is temporal: the Lebanese government’s repression of the wars’ events persistently threatens the country’s socio-cultural fabric by severing lived experience from a framework for understanding it. In resonance with Sadek, this paper argues that music--as a time-based medium--offers a unique site for temporal intervention. Drawing on 36 months of ethnographic fieldwork, this paper examines Lebanese post-rock band KOZO’s 2019 album, Tokyo Metabolist Syndrome, which grappled with the legacy of the civil wars by speculatively reimagining Beirut’s postwars reconstruction. Where rebuilding efforts were monopolized by private companies in search of profit, the album renders audible a parallel present in which the city was rebuilt in response to the city’s social needs. The tracks on the album trace the contours of this other Beirut, filling its spaces with sound in a series of tracks that explore what it means to compose speculatively and architecturally. By bringing formal and textural invention into literal and metaphorical conversation with mid-20th century Lebanese architectural movement, the album has become active tool in recuperating a past and envisioning a future for Lebanon.

Mugham, a profound and intricate form of traditional Azerbaijani music, transcends mere melody to embody a deep spiritual and cultural experience. Rooted in oral tradition, mugham serves as the foundation of Azerbaijani folk music and holds a revered place in the musical heritage of the East. I will begin this presentation with an overview of mugham’s historical development, discussing how cities Baku, Shamakhi, Ganja, Nakhchivan, and particularly Shusha—also known as the Conservatory of the East—became centers for mugham performance and education. Mugham is typically performed by a trio: instrumentalists on the tar and kamancha, led by a singer who also plays the daf. Relying on my studies as a mugham singer under the guidance of master musicians at main music institutions in Azerbaijan, I will show how the singer leads with the main melodic themes, decorating them through a unique improvisatory style. I will proceed to demonstrate the melodic matrix of seven main mugham modes, each distinguished by emotional and affective colors: rast, shur, segah, shushtar, chahargah, bayati-shiraz, and humayun. Additionally, I will show how secondary rhythmic mughams are part of the main performed cycles. While discussing the theoretical nuances of mugham, I will explain how mugham is more than music; it is a philosophy, a form of meditation, and a bridge to the cultural and spiritual roots of Azerbaijanis. The numerous recognitions of mugham (UNESCO in 2003) and its popularity on global stages through performances of Alim Gasimov, only increased its importance as an identity marker for Azerbaijanis today.

Musical improvisation engages with spirituality as a multidimensional practice, encompassing self-transcendence, relational depth, and temporal sensitivity. I examine how spirituality in improvisation manifests across religious, secular, and intercultural contexts, with a focus on its cultural specificity and philosophical dimensions. Religious approaches often cultivate profound connections and introspection, while secular perspectives view spirituality as emerging from creativity and attunement to the present moment.

Using the Art Omi music residency as a case study, I explore how intercultural improvisation highlights the tensions between universality and cultural specificity in defining spirituality. Daoist wu wei embodies intuitive adaptation in harmony with natural flow, as seen in East Asian musical practices. Jazz improvisers navigate relational dynamics, balancing tradition with spontaneity, while classical-trained improvisers root spirituality in disciplined form and real-time creation. These perspectives highlight the interplay of intuition and structure, framing spirituality as a dynamic, culturally embedded phenomenon.

I argue that spirituality in improvisation is culturally shaped, not universal. When intercultural improvisation is detached from its roots, it risks reducing spirituality to mere emotion, raising questions about balancing intuition with structure and the role of technical mastery and cultural respect. By examining the interplay of rationality and emotion, this research demonstrates that spirituality arises not only from spontaneity but also through structured coherence. In this context, improvisation becomes a site for negotiating creativity, relationships, and transcendence, challenging static spiritual definitions. It highlights cultural specificity and philosophical depth, framing spirituality as co-constructed through individual expression, cultural context, and collective interaction.