The more things stay the same – the more they keep their differences! Originality! Distinct flavours! It’s a cert – at least in global music. First was the crossover practice, resulting in that world groove with a little individual spice on top that was so typical in the genre’s founding days in the eighties and nineties; then came a growing awareness for the regional specifics.

Take Europe alone – one community under the Old World groove. But don’t expect it to have a common tune! Many common ingredients, maybe, but the results being cooked and brewed from them are totally different wherever you look – including Europe’s Southern coast, of course. Now add the North of Africa and West of Asia, and you really have a mixed bag of everything, even with the relatively confined area of the Mediterranean.

Arab rock – Carte de Sejour. Rembetiko nuevo – Nikos Papazoglou. International protest songs beyond all stylistic boundaries – Daniele Sepe. PianOriental – Maurice el Medioni. Sephardic songs from the Balkans – Ruth Yaakov. Judeo-Moroccan mawal – Emil Zrihan. Balkan music from folk to contemporary modern – Boris Kovac. Pan-Eureopean ethno-hip-hop – Watcha Clan. Electronic lounge pop – Sonia Brex. The fine art of the carinet in all possible nuances – Balkan Clarinet Summit.

You want to fit all these (and all their Mediterranean colleagues that are not mentioned here) into one stylistic drawer that gives them all enough room to breathe and resonate?

It’s not possible.

Click here for the Spotify playlist.