Thoughts & Things

World Music

World music is something I love, despite hating the name. I wanted to take this opportunity to explain both my love for the music and my hatred for the label.

We will start with the love. The music that fits into the category of world music is as diverse as the world itself is. Hearing music from other places is like allowing one's ears to travel while your body stays in one place. You can imagine people in other places listening to their local music on the radio, and having it fit in with their lives. You can picture people and places, and what everything looks and feels like based on the sound. Many of the genres are rich with history, and doing some reading on the topic while playing through an album can be wonderful and intriguing. Music from around the world is a magnificent taste of cultures different from my own, and as someone eager to explore in any way I can, I can't help but be drawn to it.

So much music fits into the category of world music that there is bound to be some of it I am less fond of. However, I have found that much of it is also fantastic. Bands I have absolutely fallen in love with fit into this category, and without being open to experiencing the contents of the category, I may never have found it due to it not being part of the local mainstream, or parts of other more western genres that I enjoy. Everything from Monoswezi to Zalvarinis to Shanren to Asha Bhosle, and many more, is well worth listening to, and sadly underappreciated.

Now for the bad. The category itself is too broad, not helpful, and vaguely racist. Hundreds of genres fit into the category of world music and much of it is not even similar. Salsa, klezmer, highlife, and fado are not particularly similar, but they all manage to fit into this broad category. If I am looking for a particular style of music, looking under the heading of "world music" isn't necessarily going to be helpful to me at all. It doesn't really indicate anything specific about what you are looking at. Genres themselves aren't always helpful either, so this isn't necessarily my biggest concern, but it is rather frustrating.

The biggest concern would be the racist undertones. Malian blues and Inuit throat singing get put into the same category, while western genres aren't lumped into a "western music" category, they are labeled by their genres. If you go into a music store, or onto a music website, you can find dozens of specific genre and subgenre labeling for western music, but "world" music gets put into one bin. You have western styles, and you have other. I'm not necessarily saying that every genre and subgenre of music in the world music category should have its own section in the local record store, as they simply don't carry enough of it to justify this (although it would be amazing if they did). But most of the music can fit into genres that already exist. Malian blues can go with the blues, for example!

It is very straightforward, and I don't see a lot of reason to keep the world music category. Music from around the world would still be something people seek out regardless of that label, and perhaps more people would find it accessible if it were labeled by genre rather than the broad category. For example, hip hop fans are more likely to stumble across Sister Fa if she is shelved with hip hop. I know that I still would have spent time seeking most of this out regardless of the category, and that I didn't even realise I was enjoying "world music" until well into my enjoyment of it.

I honestly recommend that everyone try music from different places. I think it especially important as a writer, as it can give you new perspectives on different forms of media, give you new inspiration, and give you that taste of culture to act as research for your internationally based stories.