National Geographic Music (National Geographic)

December is here, and while you lucky civilians are out ice-skating and wearing sweaters and drinking cocoa by warm fires with your loved ones, the elves here at Nat Geo Music have been on lockdown in our underground polar vaults, assiduously poring over a year's worth of musical releases to bring you our annual Best World Music list.

Of course, the biggest international music story of 2011 was wrapped up in a much larger story: The Arab Spring uprisings. Homegrown Arab hip-hop, distributed by social media, played a big part in the uprisings across North Africa and the Middle East - especially in Tunisia and Egypt. In the former, a twenty-two year old rapper named Hamada Ben Amor, a.k.a. El General, provided the soundtrack to revolution with "Allahuakbar" and "Rayes Le Bled," while in the latter a crew called Arabian Knightz flipped an old Lauryn Hill sample into a call to rebellion and Arab expats like Omar Offendum and The Narcicyst dropped Arabic and English rhymes in support of the Tahrir Square protesters. Yet while all of these songs were ubiquitous on Youtube and other social media platforms, few were officially released here in the U.S.

But that still left us with a lot to work with. Our criteria was simple - what albums from 2011 really got to us? Not just the biggest or most important releases, but the albums and songs that climbed, catlike into our ears and made themselves at home, all curled up and purring. Which songs lived in on our iTunes and our Spotify accounts, cycling over and over again as we hit repeat? The only other criteria was that the nominees had to be full albums, and had to be released domestically in the U.S. in 2011.

In the end, there could be only ten, and here they are:

NAT GEO MUSIC'S BEST WORLD MUSIC ALBUMS OF 2011:

1.) Ballaké Sissoko & Vincent Segal
Chamber Music
Six Degrees Ballake Sissoko & Vincent Segal

This aptly-titled release imagines a new kind of 21st century string tradtion, built around the friendship of two master musicians from two very different musical traditions. French cellist Vincent Segal and Malian kora virtuoso Ballaké Sissoko - son of legendary griot Djelimady Sissoko - weave their respective instruments together into this sublime, meditative and deeply moving recording. Chamber Music is a work of quiet brilliance that yields its secrets slowly, with rewards and revelations on each repeated listening.

2.) Bombino
Agadez
Cumbancha

If the world music community has become a little jaded by the glut of Tuareg "desert rockers" that seems to have flooded the marketplace since the breakout success of Tinariwen, a young Nigerien guitar-slinger named Omara "Bombino" Moctar might be the antidote. A dazzling and inventive player, Bombino explodes the usual cliches of the genre, while remaining true to its populist spirit - and did we mention that he can really shred?

3.) Blitz The Ambassador
Native Sun
Jakarta Records

Born and raised in Ghana, where he grew up immersed in American hip-hop classics, Brooklyn-based rapper Blitz The Ambassador brings it all back home on his smart, stylish sophomore set. Backed by his Embassy Ensemble - the best live hip-hop band this side of The Roots - Blitz's rhymes offer up an alternative vision of Africa and the immigrant experience in America. With its deft blend of jazzy hip-hop and snippets of traditional Ghanian sounds, Native Sun offers up smart, positive hip-hop for grownups.

4.) Los Rakas
Chancletas Y Camisetas Bordada
Soy Raka Records

Every few years or so an act comes along that reminds us that reggaeton isn't just a bunch of monotonous, pre-fab, bootyshaking basura for kids who are too young to appreciate salsa. Like Tego Calderon or Calle 13, Bay Area-duo Los Rakas blow up reggaeton's lame conventions with smart, funny and wickedly inventive beats and rhymes. Panamanian-American partners Raka Dun and Raka Rich take the music back to its origins - back to the original, '80s Panamanian/Jamaican reggae-en-español connection - while updating the mix for the 21st century. The result is a completely re-imagined version of reggaeton: smarter, funnier and with better beats. We dare you not to dance to this one.

5.) Buraka Som Sistema
Komba
Enchufada

Portugal's Buraka Som Sistema became unlikely international ambassadors for Angola's wild kuduro dance sound when their 2008 debut album, Black Diamond blew up internationally. Since then the group has toured almost non-stop, and it shows on this year's Komba, where the evolution from DJ/producer-driven project to full-fledged dance band is apparent - as is the further evolution of the group's globalized sound. Still based in the dance world's grimy underground, where kuduro and Brazilian baile-funk rub shoulders with UK dubstep, Komba isn't afraid to plant it's flag in pop territory, either.

6.) Tinariwen
Tassili
Anti

Though Malian Tuareg rockers Tiniariwen have been a critic's darling and a hipster's fave since they first broke internationally back in 2001 with The Radio Tisdas Sessions . This year marks the year rest of the world finally caught up. With guest appearances from the likes of Nels Cline, members of The Dirty Dozen Brass Band and TV on the Radio's Kyp Malone and Tunde Adebimpe, Tassili feels like a victory lap - or successful GRAMMY-bait. But close listening reveals the album to be one of the band's most heartfelt and musically-challenging recordings so far, a plaintive cry for peace and stability as the group's desert homeland teeters on the brink of insurrection.

7.) Yemen Blues
Yemen Blues
LGM/Global Lev

One of the most stunningly original releases of 2011 was from Israeli ensemble Yemen Blues. Led by Yemenite Israeli singer Ravid Kahalani, the band explores a hypnotic, hybridized version of traditional Yemeni Jewish ritual music - with a propulsive rock beat and swirling Afro-jazz flourishes. The effect is disorienting, otherworldly and completely original.

8.) DRC Music
Kinshasa One Two
Warp Records

Normally, this kind of record - where a team of big name producers and DJs descends on a developing nation to hang out with local musicians and make a benefit album - isn't really our cup of tea. But leave it to Britpop star - and serious African music aficionado - Damon Albarn to get it right. Recorded in just five days in Kinshasa, the capital of the war-torn Democratic Republic of Congo, the album dives deep into the country's prodigious talent pool, teaming up locals with homemade instruments with iPad-wielding producers like Dan The Automator, Richard Russell, and Actress. It's not always completely coherent, but the misses are as intriguing as the hits, and Albarn's own opening collaboration with Nelly Liyemge is worth the price of admission alone. All proceeds go to OXFAM to help aid the organization's work in the DRC.

9.) Various Artists
The Original Sound of Cumbia (The History of Colombian Cumbia & Porro As Told By The Phonograph 1948 - 79)
Soundway

UK-based Soundway Records delves deeper into Colombia's fertile musical humus with this top notch collection from the golden years of Discos Fuentes, Colombia's largest record label. Spanning the years 1960-76, the album's tracks were handpicked from Disco Fuentes' extensive archives by Will Holland - aka Quantic - who's helped put Colombia's rich music scene back on the international map where it belongs. And Holland's ears never lead him wrong - everything from cumbia and salsa to gaita and champeta get their due here, All-killer, no filler, a perfect party album and a well-documented archival treat for those who want to dig a little deeper.

10.) Boban & Marco Markovic Orchestra vs. Fanfare Ciocărlia
Balkan Brass Battle
Asphalt Tango

Take two of the hardest-rocking Gypsy brass bands in the world - Romania's celebrated Fanfare Ciocărlia and Serbian father-and-son dynasty Boban & Marco Markovic Orchestra - unleash them on one stage and get ready for an epic soundclash. That's exactly what Berlin-based Asphalt Tango records did last year, and the resulting album - and tour - took Europe by storm. That's because this brass band juggernaut's controlled chaos is fueled by some of the most skillful and virtuosic Roma musicians anywhere in the world - and the playing is often as sweet and delicate as it is loud and bombastic. Skip novelty covers like "Caravan" and the James Bond theme and go straight for the hard stuff.

HONORABLE MENTION:

Baloji
Kinshasa Succursale
Crammed

Originally released in 2010 on Euro indie label Kraked, Congolese-Belgian rapper Baloji's full-length debut knocked our socks off when we first heard it, thanks to the Baloji's fearless, impassioned rhymes and unique sound - not to mention a smart collaboration with Konono No. 1, and a revamped version of Grande Kalle's 1960 rumba classic "Independence Cha-Cha". But 2011 was the year that Baloji really broke here in the States - with his New York debut and a big summer tour. Since we spent a lot of time listening to him this year and wanted to give him the shoutout he deserves!