hello Internet ever heard a song and
thought wow that sounds exotic I wonder
where it's from the answer might be more
complicated than you think so what is
world music exactly it seems like a
simple enough question you could
probably take a stab at an answer it's
music from different parts of the world
right well not exactly
to answer this question fully we have to
look at globalization and to do that we
have to talk about Empire but not the
obvious kind well sort of the obvious
kind but also a second type of
imperialism intimately linked with the
term world music our notions of cultural
imperialism this is very much an
offshoot of actual imperialism with the
main focus shifted away from physical
and overt domination of people to
domination and often eradication of
their culture an extreme example of this
can be found in Australia stolen
generation a result of the policy of
resocialize in the Rapp original
communities as a result of this
association world music has a little bit
of a bad reputation in academic
discussions a clue to its links to
Western hegemony can be seen in the
standard binary between Western and
non-western music music enthusiasts once
lamented why is it that we have such a
complex network of genres and subgenres
for Western musics but only one
overarching term for music so diverse
and disparate that their only similarity
is their a non-western this this
argument has been thrown around a lot
since the 1980s and on the surface
appears to have some kind of credibility
but like all good little music
scientists we're going to subject that
credibility to scrutiny are things
really that black and white
iwould non-western as world music anyway
and what exactly do we mean when we say
world music let's get a little
historical perspective here according to
Martin Stokes before web and
file-sharing fundamentally altered the
picture in the Western world a handful
of major record companies did indeed
dominate the musical landscape Time
Warner thorn EMI Bertelsmann Sony
hologram and Matsushita the majors at
the time the 1980s their products
included recording artists such as
Madonna Michael Jackson George Michael
and others these names were globally
ubiquitous and there were a few parts of
the world that hadn't even and produced
their own versions of rock country music
rap and hip-hop on the surface there
appears to be some credibility to the
and hypothesis but the idea of a passive
listener and the dominant hegemony of
the major record labels oversimplifies
the reality the problem with the
cultural imperialist view is that it
ignores two main factors that's
hybridity and the circularity of musical
reappropriation according to Stokes
anglo-american dominated pop and rock
has always incorporated a variety of
African and Latin elements meaning that
its musical effects when returns to
Africa and Latin American world have
been complex and varied so the cultural
imperialism model doesn't account for
migration it doesn't account for the
circularity of musical dispersal caused
by the transatlantic slave trade which I
will remind you is a very very very bad
thing so please don't confuse my defense
of world music as a defense of slavery
music of slaves taken from Africa to the
Americas was isolated for hundreds of
years and blended and evolved over time
with Latin American musics upon the
return generations later the descendants
of the slaves brought with them new
music to Africa Latin American rumors
have become a staple in much Congolese
music as a result of generations of
cultural interplay between traditional
Central African peoples and those of
Latin America if we really think about
it all Western pop is derived from the
interactions between Western Europeans
and people from Africa and Latin America
and so forth
the enormous ly oversimplified and
certainly not a linear progression of
euro-american folk songs than the
introduction of african stylistic
elements to cakewalk to ragtime to jazz
to blues to rock and roll raises the
question isn't all popular music a
hybrid of different musical influences
Stokes also raises this point when he
suggests that anglo-american pop
comprises densely compacted African
Latin and old world European folk
elements African musical practices are
of similarly diverse origins comprising
amongst other things European elements
that go back to the earliest days of
slavery colonialism and missionary
activity every element of a hybridized
style is itself a hybrid of bricolage of
previous encounters assimilations and
blendings but perhaps the main problem
of world music is that it isn't actually
music from various parts of the world
not really anyway
it's normally a mix of several different
non Anglo American musical stylistic
elements sprinkled on top of standard
Western harmonies and structures but
this isn't necessarily a bad thing
I'm not condemning it for that what we
have to remember is that world music is
commodified music that is to say it's
music that's composed for a market to be
bought and sold as a commodity and as a
result it must be saleable the problem
being that what we considered miss music
is culturally learned and often we may
not hear the traditional musics of other
cultures as particularly musical let
alone desirable enough to buy the world
music markets are dictated by the
strongest global economies that is
broadly speaking Europe and North
America
sorry Australia and New Zealand but I
just can't think of a term that includes
you guys as well and as a result the
music is catered towards what these very
similar cultures consider musical thus
world music can be described as
fundamentally Western pop music with a
dash of worldliness to keep things fresh
as sad as that may seem it's what the
markets dictate but that's not to say
that traditional musics aren't being
bought and sold or that there's no
market for less openly westernized
global musical styles some non-western
musics including many South Africans on
Rah's have become huge both
internationally and nationally at the
foundation of all this two main
questions are forming number one does
world music really deserve its criticism
and number two where its consequences
really so dire arguments against it
states that the world music phenomenon
perpetuated a naive and romanticized
understanding of parts of the world that
the West needs to understand more
critically it may in some contexts have
de monster bleed offend cultural
dependence upon Western markets and
tastes of Western consumers
multiculturalism may often have reduced
rich musical traditions to mute tokens
of other nests to be noticed
administratively or exploited
commercially but not engaged in
meaningful or lasting dialogue
according to Stokes these are some of
the problems associated with the world
music phenomenon and it's no bad thing
to draw attention to them but he
continues connections have been made
ideas exchanged pleasures gains and
everyday music making in local contexts
changed in fundamental ways cultural
creativity on the margins of our own
societies previous
the invisible and inaudible have been
recognized outside of those margins we
have started to hear our social
environment more inclusively finally he
states the normalizing of vastly
different musics that resulted from the
world music phenomenon lay the
foundations on which modern
ethnomusicology could thrive but I want
to know what you think it's world music
just further exploitation of the
cultures of largely post-colonial
developing nations by the world's
wealthiest economies or does world music
open doors to the discovery of musical
genres styles and subgenres that many
would otherwise not hear while at the
same time providing an income for
musicians and bolstering music making
and there you have it
world music much of what has been
discussed in this video can be found in
the introduction to ethnicity identity
and music by Martin Stokes if you have
any questions or comments then feel free
to post in the comment section below and
if you want to keep learning about
ethnomusicology musicology or are just
interested in what people think is going
on with music then don't forget to
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you