The Indestructible Beat of Soweto

Rolling Stone magazine’s “500 Greatest Albums” ranking
The Indestructible Beat of Soweto placed #497 in Rolling Stone magazine’s 2020 list of the “500 Greatest Albums of All Time.”

The greatest album ever to be marketed under the heading “world music,” this 1985 compilation of South African pop was a huge influence on Paul Simon’s Graceland that still sounds jarringly fresh today. Full of funky, loping beats and gruff, Howling Wolf-style vocals (most prominently from “goat voiced” star Mahlathini). With a sweet track by Graceland collaborators Ladysmith Black Mambazo (“Nansi Imali”), its badass joy needed no translation.