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11 AM Claudia Cassidy Theater

Alex Cuba See Sunday 9/21.

Noon Daley Plaza

Etran Finatawa See Sunday 9/21.

12:30 PM Claudia Cassidy Theater 

Ben Herson Ben Herson, founder of the global hip-hop label Nomadic Wax, will give an interview, and some of the African MCs from tonight’s showcase (see below) will perform.

La Musgaña Multi-instrumentalist Enrique Almendros got his start in traditional Irish music, so when he founded this folk band from central Spain (its name means “the water rat”) in 1986 it was a sort of homecoming. But there are of course places where those two traditions overlap—ages ago there were Celts in what’s now Catalonia—and the Muslim conquest brought African and Middle Eastern sounds to Spain as well. Almendros left La Musgaña a few years ago, but the band continues to make a study of those many points of contact—their twisting road could lead to Dublin or Damascus, and flutist Jaime Muñoz is like a pied piper leading a crowd of pilgrims from a dozen lands to some mysterious destination. Sometimes the limpid-pool clarity of the band’s traditional instruments gets rippled and muddy with rockish rhythms and electric bass, but that just seems to be their way of keeping a good groove alive until everyone has had their fill of it. —MK

6:30 PM Sonotheque $10, 21+

Nomadic Wax African hip-hop showcase featuring Baay Bia, M.anifest, Baay Musa, Krukid, and DJ Boo New Yorker Ben Herson founded the label and production company Nomadic Wax to take his love for global hip-hop to the next level, and tonight he’s showcasing several rappers from Africa. After discovering Senegalese hip-hop, Herson wrote an undergraduate thesis about that burgeoning scene, and in 2001 he began traveling abroad to produce and record young MCs. He’s recorded more than 60 acts since then and released half a dozen compilation albums. The MCs performing tonight live in the States now—the tracks I’ve heard from them are all in English—but they’re originally from Uganda (Krukid), Senegal (Baay Bia, Baay Musa), and Ghana (M.anifest). Though their music, with the exception of some sampled kora on Baay Bia’s tracks, doesn’t sound particularly African, their rhymes often address the lives they left behind on the continent and comment on the diaspora experience. Filipino-American DJ Boo spins. Tonight’s show is preceded by “Changing the Tune of a Nation: Music as a Political Force,” a panel discussion and documentary film screening hosted by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. I’ll be one of the panelists, alongside Baay Musa, University of Pitts­burgh ethnomusicologist Adriana Helbig, and drummer Katherina Bornefeld of the Ex; musician and artist Jon Langford moderates. —PM

7 PM Claudia Cassidy Theater

La Musgaña See above.

8 PM Schubas $15, 21+

Etran Finatawa See Sunday 9/21.

Alex Cuba See Sunday 9/21.

10 PM Empty Bottle 21+

Mar Caribe Led by Tom McGettrick, whose banjo provides the lead voice, this local instrumental ensemble refracts a blend of traditional Latin and South American music through a prism of moody, soundtracky ambience. The sound is pleasant enough, but it seems better suited to the background of a scene than to center stage—and given how chatty the crowds usually are at free Bottle shows, that’s exactly where it’s likely to end up. —PM

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Tuesday at 3:44 pm