July 26, 2019

Is the term "world music" dead?

The term “world music” has become toxic, so a new word for this monthly planet-spanning roundup, however reductive, is needed - the Guardian writes in en excellent article about the music from around the globe (apart from pop music coming mostly from Europe and America). Womad festival has also stopped using the term, and Pete Buckenham, founder of the independent label On the Corner says - “At its best, it’s bad culture, dialled-down and made safe for a generic, mostly western consumer as imagined by a marketing department. At worst, the term is out-and-out racist”. And it's not that hard to find a genre-defining term - Mdou Moctar (below), for example, is blues.