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With all that's going on in the Middle East now, it's easy to forget that the Arab Spring began just two years ago in Tunisia. A video of one of Mathlouthi's songs went viral and became an anthem for protesters in her homeland during the December 2010 uprising. Her debut album is out now.

Almost 20 years ago, a young student at the National University of Mexico went in search of a very old instrument in the mountains of the southern state of Oaxaca. Today, Ruben Luengas has become a leading force in the revival of the bajo quinto and the music played on it.

A master of the Brazilian version of the mandolin, Hamilton de Holanda is determined to show the world what the instrument can do — and he's found friends in disparate musical worlds who are helping him prove is point.

"The song has to have a story that I believe in and I can make my own," says Silvia Perez Cruz, who can sing in seven languages. The intimate and fierce Granada is an album for voice and guitar.

One man in Mexico City has amassed a collection that spans the country's history, from precolonial times to the present. Guillermo Contreras says they are the "most precious creations of humanity."

The Spanish-French musician says the initial thinking behind his new album, Mediterranees, was not to compose music for a band. Instead, he says he wanted to make a concept album inspired by music across the Mediterranean and beyond.

Son jarocho is a musical style from the Gulf Coast of Mexico, which carries with it a culture of community and participation. In Los Angeles, Mexican-Americans have turned to son jarocho as a way of connecting with their roots — and each other.

When record producer Ian Brennan met the Malawi Mouse Boys, they were selling mice as roadside snacks and singing together in church. Now, they've released two albums and toured the U.S.

Violeta Parra has been called mother of the Latin American folk movement, and her work as a visual artist has been shown at the Louvre. The Chilean icon, who committed suicide at 49, is the subject of a new film.

More than 40 years ago, four friends — three scientists and one musician — went to the Huasteca region in Northeastern Mexico in search of music they wanted to record for their own enjoyment. Now, some of that work has been released on a two-CD compilation titled El Gusto.