Maria Kalaniemi is Scandinavia’s most accomplished and celebrated accordionist, winning the prestigious Golden Accordion Award in 1983 and recording several critically acclaimed albums on the Hannibal, Xenophile, and Northside labels. In addition to her rich catalog of solo albums, Kalaniemi has been indispensable as a part of top ranked Finnish folk groups such as Aldargaz, Niekku, and Zeta Bop.

Teshome Mitiku has had a legendary 40-year career at the heart of Ethiopian music, forming the massively popular Soul Ekos Band in Addis Ababa in the 1960s. The Soul Ekos Band was the first to combine traditional Ethiopian music with the sounds of electric soul and popular music from the West. They were absolute superstars, playing regularly in front of crowds of 60,000 in Ethiopia, Sudan & Kenya.

"The Lion of Zimbabwe," Thomas Mapfumo, is Zimbabwe’s biggest star, one of the most legendary and best-selling African artists of all time. In 1973, Mapfumo helped form the Hallelujah Chicken Run Band and, for the first time, began to shift his music away from Western-influenced rock and explore the traditional music of his Shona people, transcribing the scale of the traditional instrument mbira (or thumb piano) to guitar with his guitarist Joshua Dube.

The Green Arrows, lead by the immortal Zexie Manatsa, dominated the Zimbabwean music scene in the 1970s. This extraordinarily progressive group took the country by storm, fusing the different rhythms of the region into one unique and ebullient sound. A milestone in Zimbabwean music history! The Green Arrows, "discovered" by celebrated South African producer West Nkosi, were the first Zimbabwean band to record an LP, which was released in February 1976.