Eminent writer-director David Mamet says that his new movie, 'Redbelt,' is in essence an "American fight film, an alternative samurai movie."

That explains the Japanese taiko drumming that makes a dominant motif in composer Stephen Endelman's evocative score. But what about the prominent Brazilian influences of the four songs by Rebecca Pidgeon, with some lyrics in Portuguese sung by both Pidgeon and noted Brazilian singer Luciana Souza, that come at key points of the story as well as providing musical themes also used by Endelman?

It's no stretch, says Mamet. The style of jiu-jitsu at the heart of the story, and the whole surging movement called Mixed Martial Arts that is showcased, grew out of intertwining of Japanese and Brazilian cultures.

If you haven't seen this video, watch it before you read on. Heck, if you have seen it, you know you'll want to view it again. In either case, do it now. We'll wait.

OK? You might never watch Bollywood movies the same way again. Or maybe even hear music in a language you don't understand. Sure, the Buffalax person behind this bit of work is a genius, but don't be surprised if this sort of thing starts happening spontaneously in your head. If you've seen Woody Allen's 'What's Up, Tiger Lily?' -- arguably the gold standard of this sort of thing -- and then tried to watch a camp Japanese film, you know about that. Speaking (er, writing) as someone who listens to a large amount of music sung in languages he doesn't understand, that is a concern.

Now, there's a discussion going on among international music promoters and boosters about whether it would help draw more fans to some of these acts to have translations of lyrics for non-English-language songs scrolling on iPods or some such. Sure, not understanding something can be a barrier to enjoyment. But at times it seems it can also be an enhancement. There's something in the purity of sounds, something that changes when meaning is assigned to them, whether the real, literal meaning or the Buffalax treatment. And there is certainly a lure of the exotic, enhanced by a sense of true foreignness. Listening to some French pop recently spurred the question as to whether the same thing in English would be just kind of average, while in a breathy en Français chanteuse delivery it's sexy and romantic. Frankly, it's a lure that's not just a matter of the verbal language but musical too.

A celebration marking a half century since the opening of the seminal Los Angeles folk/blues/world club the Ash Grove brought something home: The roots of American roots music is in rootlessness.

All night long, in the first of two evening concerts marking this milestone, artists who in more recent years shaped modern American roots music -- Ry Cooder, Taj Mahal, Dave Alvin -- reminisced warmly on the stage at UCLA's Royce Hall about teenage journeys to the Melrose Ave. music spot to worship and learn at the feet of the masters: bluesmen including Lightnin' Hopkins, Mance Lipscomb, Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee and Rev. Gary Davis, such mountain music mainstays as the Stanley Brothers, plains balladeers such as Ramblin' Jack Elliott, even Eastern European folk music revived under the direction of musicologist Mike Janusz.

"The Ash Grove," noted Alvin this night in a scorching electric blues song he wrote in tribute to the old club he and his brother Phil made regular pilgrimages to from nearby Downey, "that's where I come from."

Some thoughts while strolling around the City of Lights:

The First Lady of Song: Being newly married to French President Nicolas Sarkozy doesn't seem to have helped Carla Bruni's music career in the capital of her reign. While she's splashed on the covers of Paris Match and pretty much every other publication on the newsstands all over town, her CDs are not exactly getting a big push. A couple copies of her two discs in the bins at the Virgin Megastore below the Louvre were in fact the only examples even sighted in a 10-day stay.

Where is the Parisian sense of history? Have the locals forgotten about Thibaut, who was not only the king of Navarre and Count of Champagne and Brie (no truth to rumors that he invented brunch) but also ruled the 13th century pop charts as a top troubadour of his times with music as rich and rewarding, creative and consumer-friendly as any of the era (or many eras hence). A collection of his tunes reconstructed by Gregorio Paniagua and Atrium Musicae de Madrid remains one of the most electrifying folk-tradition releases in the early music revival of the past few decades -- though good luck finding it, as the 1979 album, originally issued by the Harmonia Mundi label in France, has never been released on CD. You can find various examples of Thibaut pieces scattered around the early-music oeuvre, by artists such as the Paul Hillier/Andrew Lawrence King pairing, Anne Azema and the Paris-based Ultreia, which gives performances at the city's Cluny Middle Ages Museum in the Latin Quarter.

There's a guy with a two-syllable, four-letter name to whom Shawn Amos owes thanks for inspiring, if at least in a small way, the creation of the album 'In the Name of Love: Africa Celebrates U2,' a new collection featuring Angelique Kidjo, the Sierra Leone Refugee All Stars (pictured), Vieux Farka Toure and other African artists doing versions of songs by the Irish quartet, with some proceeds going to the Global Fund's fight against AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria.

OK, he's thankful to Bono, too. But for Amos – a longtime musician, music executive, producer and social activist – the direct inspiration came in the company of a man named Musa. It happened in 2002 when Amos, then running Quincy Jones' foundation, was on a trip to South Africa helping provide housing via former President Jimmy Carter's Habitat for Humanity Work Project.

In some ways it's a mariachi 'All About Eve.' In other ways a 'Svengali' variation. Or maybe a chicana twist on 'The Commitments.' But when filmmakers Elizabeth Massie and Matthew Buzzell stumbled upon Mariachi Reyna de Los Angeles – a very rare all-female group in a macho realm – at L.A.'s Union Station on Mother's Day 2000, they didn't know what the story would be. They just knew they wanted to tell it.

"We heard this incredible music, got sidetracked and found they'd enclosed one of the waiting rooms and had mariachis performing for Mother's Day lunch," says Massie. "There they were in their electric-blue suede suits. So we tracked down someone with a card, thought we'd like to go see them sometime."

Sometime didn't come for another two years, when Buzzell came across the card in his desk and then ventured to El Monte to see the group in a weekly Tuesday night restaurant gig. "It was a 'eureka!' moment," Massie says. "He had a track record of doing music things and I was interested in the feminist angle."

Is there a Cambodian equivalent of Willie Dixon? If so, Dengue Fever are ready. See, Led Zeppelin built their first couple of albums around songs that the group members apparently didn't know (wink, wink) were actually composed by the blues songwriting giant and were not in the public domain for the picking. Some years and court cases later, the Zeppers rightfully shared the credit and considerable royalties with Dixon -- and then his estate.

Los Angeles-based Dengue Fever built their first couple of albums around '60s Cambodian pop tunes -- crazy amalgams of American quasi-psychedelic rock and pop styles heavy on echo-y surf-twang guitar and distorted Farfisa organ -- knowing (no wink needed) that they had borrowed from writers deserving credit and payment. The problem has been that in some cases the group can't even identify the writers, let alone get them whatever money is due. Of course, it's a pittance on the Zep scale -- this is an indie band on a tiny label, not a global rock monster, after all. But the Dengue folks -- a unique combo of L.A. alt-rockers with charismatic Cambodian-born singer Chhom Nimol, discovered in a regular gig at a restaurant in Long Beach's Little Phnom Penh neighborhood -- want to do the right thing.

Heartland music -- you know: Bob Seger, John Mellencamp, that sort of thing. Oh, and the swirling sounds of ouds, neys and qanuns. That's what you'll get at the Heartland Seminar for Arabic Music, on the Lake Michigan shore locale of the DeKoven Center, between Milwaukee and Chicago, starting Saturday. The annual program has become one of the leading sites of Arabic music instruction in the West and is an outgrowth of the burgeoning Midwestern Arabic music community, arguably one of the most vital regions for this scene outside the Middle East.

In fact, says qanun instructor Hicham Chami, you're more likely to hear truly authentic Egyptian classical music in Chicago than in Cairo. That's a consuming passion for Moroccan-born Chami, not just via these seminars but in performance and recording as founder of the Arabesque Music Ensemble. In fact, he says the material on the group's new album 'The Music of the Three Musketeers' -- the title referring to a trio of key composers of the early and mid 20th century Egypt -- makes this point:

"These are some of the finest compositions I've ever heard, some of the finest composers in the Arab world," he says. "And some of this had been recorded only once, and that's it. The only other time was uptown Chicago a few months ago."

You probably knew that we'd be doing something like speaking with Paddy Moloney here during the Green Beer season. But there's a twist: We're talking with the Chieftains' leader, arguably the prime mover of the modern Irish music world for 40 years now, about Scottish music.

What's the difference? Well, unless you're putting cable-knit Irish pub balladeers against be-kilted Highland pipers, it may not be that great.

"It's only 14 miles of a difference there across the top of Ireland to Scotland," the loquacious uilleann piper, who'll turn 70 in August, says. "There has to be this connection."

The two Celtic regions share a lot of tunes, he notes, and certainly a lot of instrumentation, particularly fiddles. But while he says he can generally tell one from another, he's hard-pressed to articulate exactly how someone not quite as expert in it as he is might identify the essential characteristics that mark one from the other. And he's been spending a lot of time thinking about it lately. The Chieftains are currently on a U.S. tour specifically bringing Irish and Scottish music together, the trek set to conclude at Carnegie Hall on St. You-Know-Who's Day.

It was not at all conscious. A CD of performances by a young Andres Segovia made for some very nice morning listening. But it was time to prepare for an interview, so next to be popped in the player was the new album by Toumani Diabate. The segue could not have been smoother - the Spanish classical guitar titan to Mali's current king of the kora.

Now, given most of Diabate's recordings, this might be a surprise. His last, 2006's 'Boulevard de L'Independence,' with his massive Symmetric Orchestra, was a lively, raucous, electric affair. And he's been known for collaborations with everyone from the late Malian guitar great Ali Farka Toure (including their 2006 Grammy-winner duets session 'In the Heart of the Moon' to American blues master Taj Mahal to Bjork (a featured spot on her last album, 'Volta'). But the new album, 'The Mande Variations,' is solo kora, the first such album he's made in 20 years. And it proved a near-seamless transition from the Segovia -- not simply for the tonal compatibility of the two plucked string instruments in question but for something at the core of the recordings: the sheer virtuosity of the musicians.

We talk a lot about "folk music." We throw around terms like "tradition" and "authenticity." But of course we have our own views of that, colored by particular interests and aesthetics, from growing up outside a culture rather than surrounded by it. And the fact is, it doesn't always or even often align with what the people of the actual culture-in-question want to hear. Visiting Egypt, should we expect to hear Oum Kalthoum or the Musicians of the Nile or Nubian legend Ali Hassan Kuban blaring at restaurants and in taxicabs simply because they are known to international music geeks, er, aficionados around the world?

It was with that in mind that while in Egypt recently I explored the CDs on sale at locales reliably true to current tastes: truck stops. Of course, I had little clue who/what most of the offerings were, just a couple of names that popped out with any level of familiarity. We'd seen current Arabic pop videos on TV in Cairo, and on one station even got some with subtitles of the lyrics translated into English: "You have my heart prisoner / Why do you neglect me so?" -- that sort of thing. But other than that, it was hard to know even where to start.

"Winning a Grammy is a great feeling," said Angelique Kidjo backstage at Staples Center on Sunday, shortly after her 'Djin Djin' album was named the top Contemporary World Music release of the year.

Well ... she had a "but" to add. Without even being asked a question, the outspoken Benin-born star has some things to say about the very existence of a world music category in the Grammys. "What do they call world music?" she said sharply. "I don't know what it is."

It's not that she would prefer the category to be called something else. "One thing that disturbs me: categorizing," she continued. "Why do we categorize people? I don't like that. Stupidity is universal! I've seen it north, south, west, everywhere I've been. It doesn't matter what language you speak."

And it's hardly that she's an anti-Western snob. "I've been living in America for a long time. People in Europe say, 'How can you live in America?' Give me a break! I'm living where you want to be. When I was first coming here, a journalist in France said, 'Americans are stupid. They only listen to their music.' "

When Steve Reid first went to Senegal in 1966 -- by container ship in a journey meant as a reverse of the trip his ancestors took as slaves -- he was set for quite the reception. It was a time when American R&B and jazz were having tremendous impact and influence on West African music, a time when Fela Kuti and others were developing the sounds that would come to be known as Afrobeat. Though barely out of college, Reid had already been at the heart of that American scene. As a drum prodigy, he'd he already had an impressive CV, including playing with Motown acts including Martha & the Vandellas and anchoring the Apollo Theatre house band, directed by Quincy Jones, not to mention hanging out with none other than John Coltrane and learning at the feet of such drum pioneers as Elvin Jones.

So how did the locals react? "They didn't know," says Reid. That's because he didn't tell them. "That's why I was able to fit right in. That's why I was able to work so much over there and fit in."

Ever since being brought to global renown thanks to Paul Simon featuring their distinctive vocals and exhilarating dance moves on the landmark 'Graceland' album and tour, South Africa's Ladysmith Black Mambazo have routinely made recordings and concert appearances with some pretty notable figures, from George Clinton to Stevie Wonder to Michael Jackson to Dolly Parton. They even "collaborated" with Bach and Mozart on 2006's 'No Boundaries.' It's something of a signature -- and one that has kept the group's international profile relatively high and helped win two Grammy Awards and several other nominations.

No surprise, then, that another prominent name dominates Ladysmith's new album. But it's not a pop star. It's Shaka Zulu, a near-mythical hero of South Africa, the warrior who in the late 1700s united the Zulus with other tribes into a cohesive nation. The album, 'Ilembe: Honoring Shaka Zulu,' bristles with the sense of history and cultural pride associated with the name, though with songs that touch on the current political divisiveness ('Let's Do It'), the perils of personal weaknesses ('Umon Usuk Esweni,' which means "jealous eyes") and spiritual touchstones ('Prince of Peace,' somehow managing to weave Jesus' message of peace with Shaka Zulu's warrior spirit).

A revelation came on Mt. Sinai, fittingly. Not a burning bush, just a singing guide. But first came some wandering in the desert, so to speak, in search of the kind of musical moment I was hoping for when we recently headed to Egypt.

It started on New Year's Eve in an urban hotel, old part of town, a bit more faded than glory at this stage but still with charms. The dinner's kind of bland, disappointing, and the DJ is, well, a DJ. The music's loud, the beat obliterating pretty much all conversation (a request to turn it down was misinterpreted, leading to an even further increase in ear-bleeding intensity), and the sounds were what you might expect in the setting: a mix of rock, hip-hop and Abba. Except this was in Cairo, where those of us who had just hours before landed to start a tour of Egypt had if not expected, at least hoped for something of real local character. But even when a belly dancer entered, the sounds still had Western beats underpinning the Middle Eastern modes, and the event veered toward tame bachelor party in tone rather than a welcome to North Africa.