"Bhundu" is Shona for "Bush," which is where the Bhundu Boys' delightful music originates. Updating traditional African melodies, the Bhundu Boys make guitars and synths sound like African instruments such as the mbira (thumb piano) and balafon (a kind of xylophone). The band also tosses some tasty Caribbean flavors into the stew, including Latin-style horns and percolating polyrhythms guaranteed...

On 'This Is Big Audio Dynamite,' his 1985 post-Clash debut, Mick Jones dove headfirst into the cross-rhythms of the South Bronx and surfaced with as credible and exultant a hip-hop album as a twenty-nine-year-old white Brit could hope for. On No. 10, Upping St., he explores untapped nuances of hippop and aims for a workable rapprochement between B.A.D.'s high-tech beat blasting and the Clash's...

There was a time when The Clash embodied all that was noble about punk. They understood the difference between apocalypse and mere antistyle and, as songwriters, singer-guitarists Joe Strummer and Mick Jones had the gift of grab. The reggae-rap-pop Esperanto of the band's epic productions, London Calling and Sandinista!, was a blueprint for the Eighties black-white crossover to come; those records...

Big Audio Dynamite has always succeeded in making the trendy accessible, absorbing everything from hip-hop to house into a distinctive and inviting sound. Like the band's other three albums, Megatop Phoenix boasts danceable beat-box rhythms and infectious melodies yet remains arty as all getout. And if some of the songs are a little weak, they are redeemed by an undeniable joie de...