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News flash: According to the World Bank (that bastion of questionable lending practices but solid statistics), 1.2 billion citizens of our small planet survive on less than $1 per day. Another 2.9 billion barely survive on less than $2 per day. These people typically live in squalid conditions, constantly in fear of the variety of ills that plague the poverty-stricken, worldwide.

To that end and never one to shy away from a challenge, actress Natalie Portman is the Ambassador of Hope for FINCA, a global microfinance organization that provides small business loans to the world's poorest entrepreneurs through its Village Banking Campaign. From its website, VillageBanking.org:

"FINCA concentrates on providing assistance to women. Socio-economic power to women leads to better education, health, domestic violence, and lower birth-rates among individual families. Financial independence generates only a positive cycle of self-sufficiency, and micro-credit serves as a powerful tool to dispel the underlying causes of the world's poverty and hunger.  [Women] and children make up 70% of the world's poor. The goal of FINCA is to grow from having 600,000 clients to a million clients. There exists no margin for error. Since clients simply cannot afford to not repay their loans, the recovery rate of the FINCA loans is 97%. For many clients, the loan offered by FINCA is the sole opportunity to cure and permanently end a cycle of poverty for their families. Portman urges academic communities to open their hearts and minds to facilitate the process."

Portman has joined forces with IODA (Independent Online Distribution Alliance) and iTunes to produce the charity compilation album Big Change: Songs for FINCA. Here is your chance to grab a free MP3, but to also do more than that. Selling stuff (including music) online is big business, but can't we all just get along for a great cause?  So after you've downloaded today's freebie MP3 (Sean Hayes's "Turnaroundturnmeon") from Big Change: Songs for FINCA, head over to that other website and purchase the whole CD for a mere $7.99. It won't hurt at all, and you will have made a big change...for small change. Net proceeds benefit FINCA.

Big Change: Songs for FINCA includes tracks from Tokyo Police Club, Beirut, Tom Brosseau, Curumin, the Shins, Thee More Shallows, Antony & the Johnsons, Vetiver, Norah Jones, Devendra Banhart, M. Ward, Wooden Wand and Rogue Wave. So open your wallet, make this world a better place, if you can.

 

Sean Hayes
"Turnaroundturnmeon" (mp3)
from "Big Change: Songs for FINCA"
(ioda)

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Sweet Harlem Soul: It began seven years ago with The Philadelphia Experiment, a lo-fi, high profile jam session between jazz bassist extraordinaire Christian McBride, The Roots' Ahmir Thompson and avant garde pianist Uri Caine. Ropeadope Records followed the success of their brotherly love release with The Detroit Experiment, casting the stylistic net ever wider. Now comes The Harlem Experiment.

Grammy-winning producer Ace Levinson and Ropeadope founder Andy Hurwitz salute one of Manhattan's greatest cultural meccas with 15 tracks of stoned soul puree on The Harlem Experiment. The collected musicians are wildly diverse, drawing from the blues, jazz, world beat, hip-hop and big band styles. Taj Mahal, James Hunter, Olu Dara, Queen Esther, Don Byron and the Harlem House Band kick major booty on "One For Jackie," a percolating groove fest that will slap your head silly with yawning trumpets, oily basslines, grungy clavinet and a massive funk backbeat. Head to Harlem for gravy and biscuits (at Sylvia's no doubt), and stay uptown for the greasy feelgood beats.

The Harlem Experiment
"One For Jackie" (mp3)
from "The Harlem Experient"
(Ropeadope Records)

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