Everyone has a conference nowadays. Zucchini farmers, dental hygienists, the world music industry. You network, you learn stuff: Biotech zucchinis may cure obesity. Laser technology proves George Washington’s teeth weren’t made of wood. World music as a genre may be dying.
The Empress of Russia pub. St. John Street, London, England. June 29, 1987: Nineteen British indie record-company types and “interested parties” gather to hoist pints and have what the minutes call an “International Pop Label Meeting.” They are not corporate moguls. Of the group, only a few will go on to have mainstream impact, notably World Circuit Records with their release of a recording called Buena Vista Social Club a decade later. The purpose of this gathering is to “broaden the appeal of our repertoire.” A show of hands determines the term World Music will be the banner for a short-term marketing campaign. The conversation is largely pragmatic (how to sell records, methods of promotion, etc.), although there is a discussion around “the possible conflict between the short-term commercial aim of promoting World Music” and “the longer-term aim of establishing World Music as the generic term for this kind of music.”
Almost two decades later, Vusi Mahlasela, a South African singer-songwriter whose work is cherished by the likes of Nelson Mandela and Nadine Gordimer, is the lone panellist at a Strictly Mundial discussion called “The Role of World Music Festivals in Globalization.” He chafes at the term. “Good music knows no boundaries,” Mahlasela says. “To be classified as world music? This is a problem for me.”
You could almost hear the collective whimper from the clutch of presenters, agents, and radio-show hosts in attendance. For them it’s one more whack at a well-flogged horse. They’d rather talk about cultural exchanges, or even the dry inner workings of the moderator’s pet project, attac, an “international movement for democratic control of financial markets and their institutions.” They’d rather keep telling their version of the world music story, the one that says world music is a way to bridge cultures, a kinder, gentler form of globalization.
Mahlasela’s poke at the carcass is not an isolated instance of a musician who has benefited from being distributed by a multinational corporation (bmg) while simultaneously rejecting the “world music messenger” label. The resistance dates back to the early 1990s, around the time I entered this small subset of music journalism by creating the cbc world music program Roots & Wings. Most musicians I’ve encountered since are uncomfortable with the designation. Buena Vista Social Club guitarist Eliades Ochoa once told me, “I don’t play world music. I play Cuban music.” Still, chasing perceived professional benefits, many musicians have taken a pragmatic approach.
The equation goes something like this: Senegalese singer Youssou N’ Dour had a pop hit with Neneh Cherry, and he sings world music. Bingo! Cape Verdean singer Cesaria Evora lights cigarettes centre stage at Carnegie Hall, and she sings world music. Ditto! But, partly because there have always been two worlds of world music—the capital-W world, where most of the industry and audience are white Europeans or North Americans, and that other world, the one where most of the music comes from—significant commercial world music success stories are few.
The earliest wave of world music performers sensed this. Some of those artists (notably Africans) still release two sets of recordings, one designed for the world music audience, the other for culturally specific audiences. Some artists who are superstars in their own cultures have never even bothered trying to penetrate the world of world music. Still others follow the example of performers like Ethiopian singer Aster Aweke, who had a good kick at the world music can, but is now more likely to be found on the Ethiopian circuit. For artists who have enough of a diasporic community to play to, this approach can be economically beneficial, and does not impose an imperative to be cultural ambassadors as well.
How and by whom world music is promoted is another sticking point. Biyi Adepegba, a London, England-based promoter of jazz and African music, irked some members of the community recently by stating that the most prestigious awards connected to world music, the bbc Radio 3 Awards, are run by a small clique of Europeans who don’t represent African musical tastes. He suggested, on the bbc’s airwaves, that Africans don’t want to be told who the best African artists are and that African music and world music may co-exist and share, but certainly are not one.
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