What's in a name? Ask the Washington, D.C.-based chill-out champions of Thievery Corporation, who are neither thieves nor part of an actual corporation. But they are conscientious producers, which is why they have decided to take their music to the people by curating the Outernational Music Festival and teaming up with the United Nations World Food Programme to call attention to the effect of the global food crisis on Earth's poor.
Ever since the group's 1997 debut, Sounds From the Thievery Hi-Fi, mashed hip-hop and electronica into a hybrid of addictive club grooves and spaced-out soundtracking, duo Rob Garza and Eric Hilton have mixed biz and pleasure at D.C.'s Eighteenth Street Lounge club, co-owned by Hilton, and at their indie label, Eighteenth Street Lounge Music. Along the way, they've released a steady stream of atmospheric classics, worked with Wayne Coyne, David Byrne and Perry Farrell, and remixed the likes of Herb Alpert, Norah Jones and many more.
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Thievery Corporation describe its beat-heavy world music as "outernational," which is where the package tour, kicking off in San Francisco on June 20 and winding up in D.C. on June 28, takes its name. And the tour is similarly flavored: Brazil's Seu Jorge and Bebel Gilberto, Argentina's Federico Aubele and Venezuela's Los Amigos Invisibles have joined up, as have left-field Americans like Gnarls Barkley and TV on the Radio and as well as Liverpool electropoppers Ladytron.
As always, Thievery Corporation isn't just about music. Representatives of the U.N. World Food Programme will show up at Outernational to shed light on the current global food crisis and its catastrophic effect on the world's poor. As food riots break out from Haiti to Egypt and parts outward, it's good to see a band take a stand for feeding both our ears and our stomachs.
Photo: ESL
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