The American dream (how annoying!)
2026 Mix 10: The search for Saudi Arabian bangers, then on to more dependable banger sources Brazil, Mexico, Poland, and Japan, plus the US's golden age of rap (by women having fun)
I am participating in the People’s Pop Pop World Cup as a manager, which means that I am responsible for corralling song nominations for a country that is also competing in the non-pop World Cup. I made many jokes about preemptively trying to find a decent song for Qatar or Saudi Arabia, and then very amusingly did in fact pull Saudi Arabia in my random draw.
I’m pleased with the challenge, and quickly found my main nomination, which I won’t spoil here. In going through my newsletters, I see that I only knowingly featured a Saudi Arabian track once, in early 2024: Fulana’s “Ya Thalam Ya Kabes,” from Saudi Arabian label Wall of Sound Records. My research for the tournament has taken me pretty far afield from this lead, though.
I first had to sort through enough khaleeji music to know that it probably wasn’t going to be a good fit for the tournament, and then moved on to the sort of YouTube and TikTok algorithm nudging that is much more helpful for this particular purpose than my usual playlisting methods. For what it’s worth, I did find one khaleeji track that captured my attention, only to realize that this is because someone had uploaded the song at the incorrect RPM onto streaming services, opening up a tantalizing hypothetical cultural phenom of chipmunk khaleeji. (This isn’t all that different from what PinkPantheress, TikTok, and hyperpop all did to pop tempos coming out of the ‘10s, and I like a lot of that stuff better than its predecessors, too.)
Although I have the main nom sorted, I’m happy for anyone’s ideas in this region in the off chance I need other options (seems possible that no one else will nominate anything from Saudi Arabia). According to the tournament rules, this could be someone not born in but now based in Saudi Arabia or a Saudi artist living abroad.
One side effect of looking for songs differently is that I accidentally trained my YouTube algorithm to find Arabic pop that I often miss to the vagaries of crowdsourced streaming playlist curation. (Here is a second plug for Jonathan Bogart’s 2025 year-ends, featuring videos he finds mostly from a well-trained YouTube recommendation system.) The YouTube accounts on my laptop can’t recommend videos at all due to the many extensions I use to strip YouTube down to a minimal white screen. But my unfiltered phone account has been suggesting some great stuff, including this one that I missed in late 2024, from a Syrian/Lebanese duo based in Toronto. Maybe I should do try some algo herding after all?
1. underscores: Tell Me (U Want It)
US
There is a new underscores album due out in March, and the rumblings I’ve gotten from the pop commentariat—plus the lead singles and a recent remix with Yves— suggest it could be major.
2. Sw@da, Niczos: Synchronija
Poland
My favorite Polish find of last year, who were runners-up in Poland’s Eurovision qualifier, continues to synthesize global sounds with a mad restlessness (this time with Afrohouse), like they’re trying to cram the whole world into a little snow globe to shake up.
3. MOLIY, bees & honey: Partygyal
Ghana-US/Germany/UK
One left-field Billboard Global 200 heatseeker meets another one, as the star of “Shake It to the Max (Fly) (Remix)” and the production team behind WizTheMc’s “Show Me Love” (no the other one…no, the other other one) join forces for something that probably won’t make as big of a splash but does let MOLIY swim way out into the ocean without any sense of when she might come back.
4. Thee Diane, Sabrina Bellaouel: Nana
France/Algeria-France
Immediately got a solo track from Thee Diane after liking her feature on a Christine and the Queens track a few weeks ago. In the car, my kid said “this one is kind of interesting,” but when I asked how they’d describe it they shifted intonation: “I’d describe it as kind of interesting.” Fair enough.
5. Ditonellapiaga: Che fastidio!
Italy
Pulled this from the blindfold taste test before learning it got third place at Italy’s Sanremo Festival. (I’m behind on listening to the country-level competitions.) The contenders this year did not, to my ears, feature much of the global genre synthesis I was hearing when Angelina Mango won a few years ago. But any pop song bemoaning things being boring (Pet Shop Boys, The Pierces, babyMINT) or, in this case, being annoying, is a dependable microgenre. Bonus points for complaining about bossanova before going into a little bossanova section.
6. Eve La Marka: TI X4
France
A French rapper whose bouncy-ball flow reminds me of Young Leosia from Poland, but trying to do something more indebted to Latin American pop. Come to think of it, Young Leosia already did that—and she threw in a few log drums for good measure, too.
7. Trim, Bankroll Ni, Bri3, thickney: Guapo
US
8. Bri3: Hard ES
US
9. BunnaB: Not My Problem
US
Three rap singles from our current golden age of Young Women Having Fun in Hip-Hop While Everyone Frets About Rap Dying Or Whatever. A welcome respite from the fumes of the humorless breakthroughs of the last decade on the one hand and the hip but persistently mildewy art frauds on the other—I would bet that at least one of the most buzzed-about noise-rappers appears at a Whitney Biennial before they make a song I’d want to play twice.
Two of these tracks feature Bri3, who on a quick listen seems to have already made a big leap forward from her debut album in October. BunnaB is a dependable ringer that I could have put on a few mixes by now—this is her third single since January. I was holding “Seeumsayin” in reserve for a while but decided on this one instead.
10. Jezzy: La Mujer Que Me Pario
Dominican Republic
Never know when I’m going to find an “M” after the YouTube view count. Seems like a slower than usual take on dembow that makes up for lost kinetic energy with a jarring snare sound, like trying to charge your dying cell phone with a cattle prod.
11. ZXKAI, slxughter: No Batidão [2025]
Brazil
Speaking of “M’s” on the YouTube count, how’s about sixty of them for the latest interchangeable Brazilian phonk dance trend that memed its way onto the global charts! And that’s only the regular-speed version, which happens to be the best one and thankfully is the one getting the most attention. If you include the “slowed” version, you get another 44 million, and that’s before trying to do any TikTok forensics. For what it’s worth, the dance looks easy enough that I could figure it out, or at least as much of it as the teacher in one of those compilation clips who comes in right at the end as a surprise.
12. DJ LK 011, DJ GOMEZ, MC BN: Sarra Na Peça Dos Cria
Brazil
13. Chzter, FLVCKKA, angely2k: 3some
Mexico
14. MC ZKW, Poundshop: Sou Eu Mesmo
Brazil
An interesting trio of funk and funk-alikes. First is a particularly wobbly cut-up of the “Careless Whisper” sax, which is the second use of it in a Brazilian funk song I’ve featured to date. I’m sure there are several more I haven’t heard. Then, three Mexican rap troublemakers hop on some hard clave for a threesome that looks (and sounds) a lot more like sitting around getting drunk with two friends at your apartment and passing out in the middle of a conversation. And finally there’s MC ZKW and Poundshop with the first Brazilian funk song I’ve heard try to surf the recent bouyon wave. Maybe the global ferment torch has been passed—not that you can’t have a bunch of torches lit and passed at the same time.
15. VÆB f. dóttir.x: Gamerboi
Iceland
Iceland dork duo who got into Eurovision last year and now get to rep Iceland in the Other Dave parade of Eurovision boycott countries, albeit on a technicality (I haven’t looked for any other Icelandic songs yet).
16. rusino f. Hatsune Miku: Looping the Rooms
Japan
Patrick St. Michel has a long post on the past present and maybe future of Vocaloid, but I still mostly pick these things out like I’m searching for a keyboard tone that scratches the right itch. My kids’ friends are all obsessed with Hatsune Miku as something other than a syllabic preset. I think she’s more interesting as what I called in the A-pop series an auteurist mirage, “not personalities reduced to instruments, but instruments elevated to personalities.” See also: Addison Rae?
17. asmi: チョコっと好きよ [Choco Kinda Like You]
Japan
No presets, just lots of little left turns in rhythm and arrangement, a song that can’t sit still and is better for fidgeting.
18. Michał Anioł: Lubię Burzę
Poland
Remember how I mentioned a keyboard tone that scratches the right itch? This is one of those.
19. Psyché f. Merve: Yallah!
Italy/Turkey
A standout from a forthcoming Italian psych album with guest singers from Turkey and Tunisia, and sounds borrowed from all over, if by all over you mean the sort of stuff you might find on Habibi Funk.
20. Oskido, Nkosazana Daughter: Ngizimesele (DJEFF Remix)
South Africa
Finally, some Afrohouse that’s not from Poland! Another longtime kwaito and Afrohouse producer with an upbeat edit that mostly tips me off to a stronger original, from a relatively recent track (from 2022). You can follow Oskido’s trail back 25 years, through his first YouTube video in 2011 and then to his DJ sets and Church Grooves compilations from the early ‘00s.
21. Matute Boy, Mulest Vankay f. Xduppy, Mellow & Sleazy: O Batla Nako Or Chelete
South Africa
22. MxCarter, Rody Joh, T-Low: Tondolo
Tanzania
Two solid amapiano and Afrohouse tracks to close things out with. You’ve got another 13 minutes, right?
That’s it! Until next time, feel free to respond to this newsletter at any time with “how annoying!” but hopefully never with “how boring!”
—Dave Moore (the other one)
Title translated from Ditonellapiaga: Che fastidio! (“Il sogno americano—che fastidio!”)
A keyboard sound that scratches an itch - for me that's the monotonic synth whining its way around Vietnamese plugg tracks. I don't know enough about gaming or presets to get any reference, it just feels like distilled retrofuturity every damn time.