Free Streaming World Music Stations

April 17, 2022 12:06 PM

I listen some to Radio Paradise's World/Eclectic mix, but I'm looking for other free, streaming, radio stations that exclusively play a curated mix of world music. I find lots of stations devoted to a particular country or style, but haven't found the kind of mix stations I'm looking for. I'm not interested in what I'll call 'fusion' world music, by which I mean traditional music of a culture that has been heavily interpreted to include pop influences, or heavy rhythms, etc.
posted by Jackson to Media & Arts (7 answers total)

Have you explored the world of Radiooooo?
posted by mumkin at 1:12 PM on April 17, 2022 [2 favorites]

It's hard to get curated music classified as "world music" that isn't heavily interpreted to appeal to the very people who call it "world music". To the people who are from those places where the music comes from, it's just "music". radiooooo.com is a good start. Maybe radio.garden will get good results, too.
posted by 2N2222 at 1:53 PM on April 17, 2022 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: Thank you, Mumkin and 2N2222. I have now looked at both Radiooooo and radio.garden. Both are very interesting, but neither seems to include what I'm looking for. Frankly, I thought there would be lots of options for stations that would play a mix of traditional music from all over the world in the same set. The Global Celebration and the Global Meditation 4 volume sets of CD's do just that, so I thought there would be a market for similar radio stations.
posted by Jackson at 6:31 AM on April 18, 2022

Best answer: You might find something you like at RootsWorld Radio.
posted by conrad53 at 10:07 AM on April 18, 2022

This isn't 100% world music, but WVFS Tallahassee, a student-run radio station at Florida State University has, in my opinion, a very good world music show on Sundays, from 16:00 - 18:00 in the Eastern time zone (UTC-4 right now, UTC-5 for Standard time) of North America.
posted by TimHare at 8:55 PM on April 18, 2022

Best answer: NTS.live radio shows are tagged by style and genre, and the DJs selections are entertaining and knowledgable, and the search function works great. Many of the world music oriented episodes focus on specific themes. Death is Not the End is one of my favorties, but there are many deep dives throughout.
posted by bendybendy at 9:16 AM on April 19, 2022

Response by poster: Thank you conrad53 and bendybendy - RootsWorldRadio and NTS are a whole new world to me - deep and rich.
posted by Jackson at 5:11 AM on April 23, 2022 [1 favorite]