For every one person that takes pride in spewing vitriol over Vampire Weekend’s unabashed cribbing of West African song structure, there’s a thousand more who, on a very basic level, simply love what they do. The argument over relatively privileged Westerners appropriating the sounds and rhythms fostered in widely impoverished nations is a valid one. And while Esau Mwamwaya and Radioclit’s debut LP as The Very Best May not be the wrecking ball to barriers of Western guilt, it makes a very strong case that cross-cultural pollination in modern pop music can yield undeniably brilliant things.

Lead-off single “Warm Heart of Africa” actually features Vampire Weekend’s Ezra Koenig holding his own in concert with the peaks and sustains of Mwamwaya’s Malwaian vocal lines — and indisputably leads to a charming slice of brightly-hued afro-pop. M.I.A. later counters the otherwise insular warmth of “Rain Dance,” bringing her most assured Bamboo Banger cool. Though guest spots are tactfully kept to a minimum as The Very Best spends the majority of the record sprawling out into surprisingly dreamy, huge-sky surroundings. The swelling strings smokedrifting their way around the phased-out new wave beats of “Angonde.” The synth-driven nostalgia of “Chalo” and the dark, trance-inducing pulse of “Nsokoto.” All of it disputing some blog-fueled idea that The Very Best are here to soundtrack your next loft party. Instead, we’re given a deeper record than some May’ve anticipated — sonically, for sure — but more so The Very Best’s debut stands up higher as document of seamless (and shameless) cultural convergence. Moving past the arguments of international style-theft and focusing on crafting something truly worldly instead.

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