I have been listening to the The GP podcasts since about a year after he debuted them with the Brahma interviews in Brasil, sometime in late 2006. In that time, Gilles has oscillated between apathy and enthusiasm as he's tried to find the right balance (I'm assuming) between being a DJ, radio host, beat maker, record label executive, and podcaster. To find the time, as he does, to do each of these is astonishing in itself, but more so in light of the fact that he, like the rest of us, must find the private time to search out and listen to new music is beyond my realm of comprehension.
The "Worldwide" label is catchy, but unintentionally misleading. This podcast is not like that delightfully quaint Putumayo "World Folk" CD you have collecting dust on top of your stereo, one can pretend to look educated and cultured with by mere virtue of exhibiting its cover. In fact, the substance of Gilles' podcasts is a mix of interviews, music, tribute sets, and live-recordings, while the genre tends toward the new-soul/jazz/funk and electronica genres, there are occasional ventures into new and old musical pioneers from Africa, Brasil, and Japan.
Truth be told, some of the tracks you'll download from this series are teetering on the edge of getting labeled 'headphone' albums, as some of the interviews can get a little long-winded, and some of the tracks pleasurably cacophonous, meaning the music might not ring with your roommate's provincial punk-grunge tastes. Per definition, don't expect these to be tracks you can just let play at your next party, as they won't really play the role.
Take the time to listen, not only to the music, but especially the interviews, and you can expect to be severely educated and musically enlightened to a world of good music that is coming out of the underground hip-hip and jazz scene in America & the soul and electronica scene in the UK.
While I do not listen to it much, my hunch is that the Gilles you will find on the Radio 1 show is constrained by the demands of catering a marketable radio show to an audience that isn't entirely interested in left-of-field noise. The Podcast series however, is a private little venue, where you will find a lot more to supplement the music and get a taste of what it feels like to be with the DJ when he's at home.
