Week 4 - What is World Music and why does it exist?

World music is associated with its use of rhythm and usually associated with musics from Africs, yet has recently become more inclusive (now with inclusion of American, Asian and European music), albeit a product that has derived from aggrieved, disadvantaged or third world populations., in order to represent a small subculture through the fusion, as Tony Mitchell (1993) notes, of modern and traditional music.

At an linguistic level, world music is associated with the translation of lyrics to those other than English. It can also be argued that world music has been institutionalised through the construction as a sub-genre, advertisements, festivals, radio and television programmes.

World music supplies a sense of cultures as being homogeneous, as well being used as a concept of race though its biological and musical characteristics. So therefore, it can be argued that world music is not necessarily about a particular repertoire or group of people, but about the importance of particular musical practices in relation to that of mainstream, inviting a choice of musical experiences. It can also be said to be a reminder of the hierarchical dominance that the music industries enforce upon music markets with the ability to keep at bay any music which falls outside that of mainstream.