Dismayed by an awareness of the homogenizing imprint, Western-style pop music was leaving on the youth of Madagascar, thirteen folk masters pooled their considerable talents and produced The Vakoka Project. An opportunity now exists for Afropop listeners to join the struggle with these thirteen to preserve the traditional music of the island nation of Madagascar. The Vakoka Project is an album, an album of superstars, and it is about to be released in North America and Europe. Proceeds from its sale will go toward the creation of a library of sound, an archive to safeguard the loss of even one precious melody. And, the musical architects of The Vakoka Project have even greater dreams for their superstar collaboration: what Orchestre Baobab did for Senegal, what the Buena Vista Social Club did for Cuban music, The Vakoka Project can do for Madagascar. It is the album to put the island on the world music map.

Whether reality will live up to promise, a good listen will tell. In any case, the Malagasy artists are coming out swinging with impressive musical hardware. Listen for the unique signatures of such instruments as the lokanga, marovany, kabosy and the sodina. These artists represent all regions and hence all the styles of the island. In a first collaboration of its kind, they do not rehash. They create new compositions. And while the title of the album says so much-Vakoka means 'tradition' in Malagasy-these artists are not shy to pick up modern instruments such as the saxophone and the guitar. As one of the music directors, Hanitra Rasoanaivo, most aptly spells it out, music never stands still. One's thinking, one can infer, should never fossilize.

Why this album will likely ignite a passion in hence, uninitiated, listeners is best explained by Malagasy guitarist, Etienne Ramboatiana, who in singing praises for the island's music says it, "combines the spirituality of Oriental music, the rhythms of African music and the intellectualism of European music."

"We are almost trapped on an island surrounded by the sounds of animals and nature," Hanitra Rasoanaivo, continues. Ms. Rasoanaivo is the lead singer of the group Tarika and is speaking on how nature plays the role of muse for Malagasy musicians. The southern Bara people use their music and instruments to play shadow to the local cattle, the zebu. The people of the high plateau derive inspiration from height.

In a country where stores now carry the latest Britney Spears and perhaps even more ominously, recording studios pressure traditional music makers to include the noise of synthesizers and drum machines in their compositions, the island's master musicians decided that a good defense would be a good offense. Sean Whittaker of Canada, another architect of the project and the principle fund-raiser, has said that he would have had an easier time raising money to protect lemurs. The cultural diversity of Madagascar, he says, is on a par in richness, with the nation's famous flora and fauna.

Afropop would like to thank Richard Hamilton for the information contained it this report. Mr. Hamilton works for the BBC out of Antananarivo.