Crowning our great pop hope of the year has become a January tradition in the UK. But what is the Sound Of 2011 around the world?
Richie Loop, Jamaica
Richie Loop cut his teeth as a producer at Shaggy's Big Yard Music Group, but it was his punch-sipping 2010 anthem My Cupp that propelled this fresh-faced 24-year old chartwards. Slathered in Auto-Tune, it suggested Loop has learned a few lessons from the likes of Akon, while still boasting the sort of singalong charisma that saw Sean Kingston top the UK charts. "Richie has an energy that is rare in Jamaican entertainers," says Leighton Levy, a columnist at the Jamaica Star. "He is not afraid of being a happy, fun-loving kid. All I Really Know has that potential to be a big club hit in the US and in the UK. It has that wild party vibe and could be the song that makes him a truly international star this year."
Thiago Pethit, Brazil
Moon-eyed romantics will find succour in Thiago Pethit, a young Sao Paulo gent whose tremulous love songs and bare piano ballads couldn't be further away from the sounds you'd expect from his home city if its maker upped sticks to the north pole. But his 2010 debut, Berlim, Texas, won fans including Brazil's king of tropicalia, Caetano Veloso, and it's not hard to see these melancholic songs touching a nerve for those who swooned to Jos� Gonz�lez, et al. "He's a little of Leonard Cohen and Serge Gainsbourg, but at the same time making his own thing," says Ana Garcia, editor of Coquetel Molotov. "He is busy, playing all over Brazil, and later this year he'll be playing a few festivals out of Brazil, like SXSW."
Paula I Karol, Poland
Last decade, the whimsical acoustic sound of antifolk slowly colonised the soundtracks of indie cinema. Now, it's off to eastern Europe. Boy from North Bay, Ontario meets a girl from Warsaw, they fall in love ? but what began with the pair messing around on guitar and violin in their kitchen gradually gave life to fragile but uplifting ruminations on love and life. "Paula and Karol are Poland's new superheroes. Not the tight pants, fluttering cape kind. More like, come to our concert ? we'll break your heart, and then we'll fix it up kind," according to Lukasz Kaminski of Gazeta Wyborcza. New LP Overshare should warm the sternest heart. "In Poland we never experienced the folk revolution ? not in the 60s, not recently ? and who knows, maybe we're on a brink of one."
Baloji, Belgium
A couple of years back, 32-year-old hip-hop artist Baloji returned to his native Congo with the idea of remaking his debut album, Hotel Impala, Africa-style. The trip spawned Kinshasa Succursale, an LP recorded with likembe group Konono No 1 and a must-see video for Karibu Ya Bintou that features dancers in skeleton suits gyrating on the streets of Kinshasa. Brett Johnson of veryartistical.com is a big fan. "Like Somali rapper K'Naan and South Africa's Blk Jks, Baloji represents an exciting young voice from the continent that is redefining what westerners typically associate with being music from Africa. Through his mic skills, visual style and sheer charm, he's able to seem contemporary but vintage at the same time."
Tshetsha Boys, South America
First there was the funky kwaito of DJ Mujava's 2009 hit Township Funk ? then the "zef" rap-rave of Die Antwoord. But now it's the turn of the Tshetsha Boys. Fusing traditional Shangaan sounds to low-rent keyboard sound set to a racing 180bpm, it's music sneered at by the metropolitan middle classes, but beloved of cab drivers and blasted out on street corners. Honest Jon's included a Tshetsha track on Shangaan Electro last year, and a full album follows this year. "The Tshetsha Boys are going on tour to New York, London and Amsterdam ? so they may have quite a big year. And they make Die Antwoord seem tame in comparison when it comes to the costume," says Lloyd Gedye of South Africa's Mail & Guardian.
Duck Fight Goose, China
The Chinese state is only now beginning to thaw to the idea of popular music, so the homegrown scene is rather underdeveloped, dominated by formulaic pop or cute pastiches of western genres (see Beijing's punk underground). Daring to be different are Shanghai foursome Duck Fight Goose. Debut EP Flow sets out their pitch: metronomic math-rock with effects-twisted vocals ? in places, reminiscent of Sonic Youth or Battles, but elsewhere, stubbornly unclassifiable. "After releasing their debut EP, DFG seem to be on a whole new mission, re-drafting their sound into something more synth-based and 'pop'," says Dan Shapiro of CNNGo. "They played a couple of brand-new tracks at the end of their release show and the crowd was in awe."
Christina Milian Kelly Brook Robin Tunney Kate Groombridge Dania Ramirez
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