Doug-E-Tee and Awadi are straight off the streets... of Dakar, Senegal, West Africa. If they weren't rapping in Fulani and French, you might think this was the latest hot crew from Death Row Records. I had to read the liner notes twice to convince myself that Dre hadn't laid down the freaky organ lines that snake through the chorus of "Def Lo Xam" (Fulani for "Do what you've got to do"). And there are moments where the interplay between the basso growl of Awadi and the tenor of Doug-E-Tee sounds suspiciously like the back and forth of Chuck D and Flavor Flav.

But it's deeper than that. There's something about a Senegalese rapper declaring, "I got so much love for my niggers that it really hurts me every time I see them always pulling tha' triggers" that forces you to accept that the music world is becoming truly multinational. The tracks cut in LA today get broadcast in NYC tomorrow, in Dakar next week, and find themselves incorporated into albums made by West Africans in Paris. As the circle starts to close, perhaps American producers will keep their ears on the streets of Dakar, Abidjan, Accra and Lagos in the hopes of finding the Muslim equivalent of the Fugees. Keep your ears open for the sounds from a new set of "motherland MCs"-- and pick up PBS's Salaam to warm you up in the meantime.