Who are the most important artists that aren't from the major English speaking countries?

The Italian singer/songwriter "Zucchero" has a worldwide appreciation.
Great blues/rock pop songs and a powerful voice, one of the best ever from Italy.
His best songs known worldwide are: Without A Woman (Senza Una Donna), A Devil In Me, Diamante, The Flight, Miserere, ecc...

 

Nope, he was from Zanzibar and grew up in India before coming to England. Tanzania is in East Africa.

 

Some people are being willfully ignorant.

Then again, I forgot to include Miriam Makeba and I have close to a dozen LPs by her! She did record in English too though, and was in exile in the U.S. (as was High Masakela) and released on big U.S. labels. Maybe the question should've been more precise?

 

The British protectorate of Zanzibar became part of Tanzania.

 

Definitely agree! I saw Manu Chao perform in Seattle about 10 years ago in a small venue (Paramount Theatre) and he absolutely rocked the house! His show was an extremely high energy show and went on for quite some time. Overall very memorable and a great experience.

 

And no one has mention PSY yet?? He had the most viewed youtube video of all time when Gangnam Style came out!

 

Wolof is the language most spoken in Senegal. Also, Fela(Nigeria), Angelique Kidjo(Benin), King Sunny Ade(Nigeria) and many others from Africa.

 

Milton Nascimento!

 

Who is that?

 

If we allow jazz there's tons from the non-English speaking world!

 

Was born and raised in London.

 

Oops, didn't know that.^^

 

In 2019:

Daddy Yankee
J Balvin
Ozuna
DJ Snake
BTS

I'm sure there are plenty more that I can't think of right now

 

Rosalia made this song and it's huge throughout the Spanish speaking world. Not flamenco obviously, but still hers.

 

A huge artist throughout the Latin world is Laura Pausini. Her album RESTA IN ASCOLTA was a huge success and she had versions in her native Italian as well as one in Spanish. I first heard her in Switzerland not far from the Italian border and was impressed. My favorite on that album is "Benedetta Passione" and I much prefer the original Italian.

 

Fela Kuti

 

Bob Marley

 

Os Mutantes and other bands that were part of the Brazilian psychedelic rock movement

Vladimir Vysotskiy (the most famous Soviet singer/songwriter)
Other Russian rock groups (Kino, Akvarium, etc.)

You might not like it, but K-Pop is huge. BTS is one of the biggest groups right now; they did a Beatles homage (in their dress and the set, not their music) recently on the Colbert show

Then of course there's Bollywood, but I don't really know any artists because it's not my thing. But I know it's wildly popular in India.

 

Ace of Base. Unless they are from Minnesota unbeknownst to me.

I have an EP from a Belgian band called Polyphonic Size. Not bad.

 

It has already been mentioned but Kraftwerk without a doubt. Their influence can be heard on almost every dance/techno/pop/hip-hop record. They are the most important non-english group of all time and had a bigger impact on today's music than the Beatles or Elvis.

 

Has anyone mentioned Jean Michel Jarre?

 

I'm not exactly clear on what the OP means by "important"? I'm assuming this means within the radar of English speakers? The artists I mentioned are all internationally known. So I don't see why genre matters? Obviously artists who sing in other languages than English aren't very well known to English speaking audiences, so internationally known jazz artists can be deemed as "important".

 

My bad. I thought he was Greek. His Father was a Greek Cypriot. Thanks for the correction.

 

Danish alternative rock duo The Raveonettes.

 

George Solti - Hungarian - 31 Grammy Awards, the most by anyone