Growing up absorbing a range of music, from classical Brazilian Villa-Lobos to Jimi Hendrix,  Naná Vasconcelos became an innovative percussionist who could pick up a beat on almost any instrument. He came to specialize in the berimbau, the single-stringed Brazillian percussion instrument, and in the polyrhythms typical of his home in northern Brazil.
 
Starting his career with a young Milton Nascimiento, he became a frequent collaborator with what came to be called (deeply over-simply, of course) jazz intellectuals -- bandleaders like Don Cherry and Pat Metheny and crossover artists like saxophonist and composer Jan Garbarek who play with silence, improv and a broad palette of sound. He released a slew of his own records as a bandleader, and throughout his life he sought fresh sounds with new collaborators. For a taste, try his 2009 collaboration with Joyce and Mauricio Maestro, Visions of Dawn: The Paris 1976 Project.

Vincent Moon rose to acclaim through the Take Away Show, a blog showcasing his videos of indie rock musicians ranging from The National to REM, shot in intimate (and often unusual) locations with camera phones and other everyday technologies.
 
In 2008, Moon embarked on a worldwide journey with only the possessions and video tools he could carry on his back, eschewing profit and a traditional career for a nomadic lifestyle. He has wandered from Central Europe through Africa and into Northern Brazil, documenting and filming traditional music and sacred traditions for his Creative Commons web publishing initiative, Collection Petites Planètes. The New York Times wrote that "Moon proved it’s possible to reinvent an old, tired format (the music video) using the very thing (the Internet) that supposedly killed it.”