National Geographic Music (National Geographic)

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If Globalization has a soundtrack, it's definitely urban. Hip-hop culture—multi-racial, post-modern and very urban—has become the defining global youth culture of the 21st century. Rap and house music, both rooted in black urban communities in the U.S., have been inspiring viral, homegrown variants around the globe for decades.

But globalization isn't a one-way conversation. These days the sounds of urban America have traveled the globe like a boomerang, to return home with new accents, changed outlooks and novel rhythms. This is world music in the truest sense: its appeal is global but its sound and vision remains intensely, stubbornly local.

These assembled tracks reflect all the weird and wild mutations that urban music has undergone on its global travels. From remixes of Roma (Gypsy) bear-training songs to African rappers, to German laptop-salsa, this music obliterates borders and boundaries to achieve a global groove.

1. Slavic Soul Party!: "Technochek"

Slavic Soul Party!—who contribute one of several GeoRemixed tracks with Balkan and Mediterranean influences—are known for their acoustic mash ups. "Teknochek," a remix of a track to be included on their forthcoming Spring release, Teknochek Collision, adds an electronic layer to their already funkified big brass sound.

2. X-Plastaz & Kid Sundance: "Cheza" (Kid Sundance Remix)

Tanzania's X Plastaz (pictured) merges hip-hop beats made on vintage analog equipment with chants from the Maasai, a semi-nomadic tribe known worldwide for their unique garb and body ornamentation. "Cheza" is among the last tracks that the late X Plastaz member Faza Nelly recorded before he died in March 2006. X Plastaz is part of a generation of modern musicians whose diverse band membership builds musical bridges organically.

3. Bole2Harlem: "Minnale"

Remix culture does not inherently mean abandoning cultural roots. Bole 2 Harlem's Dave Schommer hatched his Ethiopian hip-hop hybrid upon finding Ethiopia's own hip-hop scene to be overrun by mimics of American commercial hip-hop. "This track is a celebration of Ethiopia's diversity, rich cultural heritage and historical value," says Schommer, "quoting everything from coffee ceremonies … to the 48 languages spoken … to Lucy. The chorus is derived from a popular folk chant that is now commonly heard at weddings."

4. Vieux Farka Toure & Yossi Fine: "Ma Hine Cocore" (3rd Bass Remix)

Vieux Farka Toure—the son of the late Malian bluesman Ali Farka Toure—has embraced DJ culture in his own way by releasing remix tracks simultaneously with his debut album. On this remix, Ex-Centric Sound System's bassist/producer Yossi Fine applies his signature remix approach by layering on top of the original, uncut song.

5. Shantel vs. Boom Pam & Jewish Monkeys: "Bucovina" (Koshernostra Mix)

Tel Aviv's surf-rock-influenced, tuba-backed Boom Pam collaborate with the Jewish Monkeys only to get remixed by Shantel, "king of the Balkan dancefloor." After a trip to the Bucovina region, on the border between Romania and Ukraine where Shantel's mother's family originates, he triggered a new wave in clubland by adopting the energetic sounds of Eastern Europe without any of the usual clichés, ethnological ballast, or folksy traditionalism.

6. Hip Hop Hoodios: "Raza Hoodia" (Tweety Gonzalez Electro-Bar Mitzvah Megamix)

Hip Hop Hoodios is a Latino-Jewish urban collective featuring members of Santana, The Klezmatics, Los Abandoned, and Jaguares. "Hoodío" is a twist on the word "judío", Spanish for "Jew". The original version of "Raza Hoodia" was recorded by the group in Brooklyn. Here Argentine producer Tweety Gonzalez (Soda Stereo, Shakira, Acida) stepped in to put his own unique electronic stamp on Los Hoodios' post-ethnic mayhem.

7. OMFO: "Kozakhs HiFi"

Further down the trans-Balkan path comes OMFO—Our Man From Odessa—whose "Kozakhs HiFi" brings electro-humor to the sounds of Transcarpathian instruments such as the sopilka (flute), drimba (mouth harp), and koza (bagpipe). The group's album Trans Balkan Express built a bridge from folk sounds to Kraftwerk. "Kozakhs HiFi" shows why OMFO's music is alternately called Village Disco or Space Folklore.

8. Shukar Collective: "Bar Boot" (Junkyard Remix)

Romanian band Shukar Collective's "Bar Boot" gets remixed by underground hip-hop producer Junkyard. The multiethnic Shukar Collective was born from the convergence of a new generation of musicians with Roma (Gypsy) traditions of the Ursari community, former bear tamers who make music using instruments like spoons and wooden barrels. "Bar Boot" is a pun on the word "barbut" which is the name of a dice game that was popular with Roma men, but banned under the old regime.

9. Cantecul Mirelui: "Fanfare Savale" (Shukar Collective Remix)

The tables are turned when Shukar Collective remixes Fanfare Savale's "Cantecul Mirelui." Savale comes from Zece Präjini, a Romanian village of fewer than 200 inhabitants. The story goes that every man in the small town plays at least one brass instrument and the village has more bands per capita than anywhere in Europe. Few of the players read written music, but they are said to be able to play any tune after hearing it only once.

10. Señor Coconut: "Behind The Mask" (Reggaeton Mix)

Meet Señor Coconut, possibly the world's only German/Chilean "electrolatino" interpreter of pop standards, famous for his laptop-salsa and acid-merengue covers of Kraftwerk, Sade, and Michael Jackson. Here his "Behind the Mask" gets a Reggaeton treatment by Peter Rap.

11. Pacha Massive: "Don't Let Go" (DJ Tunah Remix)

GeoRemixed comes full circle with a track straight from The Bronx, the breeding ground of the earliest hip-hop. The bilingual mix of dub, cumbia, trip-hop, and funk of Pacha Massive is remixed here by New York underground DJ Tunah on their single "Don't Let Go" from their new album All Good Things.

12. Pato: "Keep It Real" (Benny Beats Remix)

A few years ago, Ben Herson, founder of the Nomadic Wax label, brought his mobile studio to Dakar, Senegal and put the word out that he would record with anyone who would grab a mic, in an effort to find obscure MCs without the resources for costly studio time. Herson a.k.a. Benny Beats encountered the rapid-fire Wolof rhymes of a young MC named Pato. The original recording of "Keep it Real" had Pato rhyming double-time on top of a beat sounding much closer to a reggae 'steppers beat' and about half the speed of hip-hop. For this remix, Benny Beats matched the speed and ferocity of Pato's poetry with a barrage of old school, double-timed break beats.

13. Eli Efi & Laylo: "Marcha Soldado" (f/ Lah Tere)

Benny Beats returns with a remix of Brazilian MC Eli Efi and Laylo's "Marcha Soldado," a musical call to black and poor people to struggle for their health, happiness, and dignity. The lyrics say that criticizing an unjust society is not enough. The thunderous bass beat—which Eli Efi and Laylo affectionately refer to as "the elephant beat"—is sweetened with the vocal stylings of female MC/vocalist Lah Tere of Rebel Diaz fame.