An ethno-colleague, who shall remain anonymous, had her students listen to the Afropop program on World Music 2.0. She was kind enough to send me a hilarious response. I’m rather floored by the ways it mixes a (kneejerk?) resistance to exoticism and an insistence on indigenous originality. I wonder how many other listeners/readers either A) miss the point and/or B) are unable to hear what’s interesting in the music we’re talking about —
The music of the “World Music 2.0” genre doesn’t seem to really hold up on its own. Listening to it is extremely boring due to its repetitive nature and lack of any interesting musical forms. The only purpose it seems to have is to provide a dance beat at clubs or parties.
Can this music even be considered world music anymore? It sounds so western that I cannot differentiate it from club music created in America and Europe. We established earlier that just because a song is made in a non-western country, doesn’t necessarily mean it can be considered world music. If a song is created in a western style by a non western artist, then it is not world music.
Are there a lot of issues with copyright and originality that arise due to the internet based nature of world music 2.0? It seems as though a lot of songs result from various mixes and beats created by non-professionals that are then changed as they spread across the internet.
For all the confusion here, that last sentence really hits the nail on the head!
World music sux.
it must suck not being able to both think OR dance, let alone dance AND think?
and yess – to focus on the positives, if the whole issue of originality (what a fake constructy neways) is that obvious to somebody who has trouble with the more obvious (heart, head, ears) stuff related to music, that says a TON about how prescient and real the dialogue that big-eared musicheads have been having for a while a while a whiiiiile….
but yeah, this was my fav line – “If a song is created in a western style by a non western artist, then it is not world music.”
um…actually…isnt that more more more ‘actually’ WORLD music than ANYTHING?
its like they didnt miss the point at all?!
as Tim Brennan said —
“Listening to it is extremely boring due to its repetitive nature and lack of any interesting musical forms. The only purpose it seems to have is to provide a dance beat at clubs or parties.”
This, to me, is a form of blindness, often typical of the West. This response is actually quite important though, as I think it reflects what World Music 2.0 is up against; the discourse it’s trying to reshape. Time to change out lenses.
We can all have a good laugh at the naivety of the letter, but I have to say I find it extremely illuminating. Does it not perfectly illustrate the Marxist notion of alienation? The original term “world music” of course was a marketing term that allowed the Western consumer to pretend there were still idealized agrarian communities that were unaffected by the historical rupture of industrialization. The social space of “world music 2.0” takes place in the club, and this defines the music’s characteristics. The power of the music then is derived from the property owner, the capitalist class, even though the music production is from a separate labor class. Of course the same was true of the original world music, which was still produced within the network of capitalist relations. Marx’s point about alienation was not that it was unique to capitalism, the laborer was still alienated in pre-industrial history, but that under capitalism this alienation becomes more transparent. The rootlessness of identity becomes apparent. Identity is shaped not necessarily by common cultural mores, but by impersonal capital which exists the world over.
Much like the transition from rural farm labor to factory work is, on balance, an improvement so to with the transition from the world music paradigm to club-centric music.
Although I’m never sure how far exactly one would want to push a Marxist or Marxian analysis of things, it is, at least, a useful way of analyzing the confusion on display in the letter.
Thanks for the analysis, Paul. I should add, in case it’s not clear (I guess it’s not), that I also find the letter “extremely illuminating,” for the Marxist reasons you enumerate — and others.
At the same time, I’m not sure that the 2.0 state of things — in which we start to approach more of a peer-based system (if with plenty of enduring asymmetries) — is so easily subsumed under an owner-laborer rubric, despite that, yes, there are plenty of (firstworld) middlemen making money off (thirdworld) production, as usual.
My Marxist take on World Music is a Wallersteinian one, with a center (the record companies in the west) colluding with the elites in the periphery to have musicians/labourers produce music for their Capitalist market. The cultural essentialism serves as a hegemonistic ideology, excluding the material (2.0 stuff) with more revolutionary potential, and steering musicians to produce what only the center is interested in and benefits from, thus locking them into the colonial system. Putomayo = plantation owner, essentially.
As a newcomer to both global electronic music, and electronic music in general, I must say that my original sentiments echoed (and still do sometimes echo) those expressed in the class’s comments. While I have since learned to be more attuned to musical undercurrents, how songs shift into one another and are re-mixed, and different beat and rhythms, a lot of times I find it difficult to distinguish the various elements. It’s a sentiment also echoed by my indie-rock loving friends who view electronic music as simply four-to-the-floor. Perhaps this class’s dismissive comments have more to do with an unfamiliarity with electronic music than anything else. For beginners, it might be helpful to play the most obvious, explicit examples of how Brazilian percussion is used in tamborzao–to pick apart the song bit by bit instead of simply listening to it and moving on. By uncovering the levels and rooting them in historic practice, the students might understand it as a musical form unto itself.
love this. it took bob marley – what – 3-5 months to record one love after the impressions released people get ready? things move so much faster now. yay world internet!
long time reader, first time commenter. If we put quotation marks around “world music” throughout the second paragraph, thus making it clear that the phrase is a constructed category and doesn’t simply mean “music of the world,” isn’t the student correct? i.e., this is music that doesn’t go out of its way to display obvious markers of “non-Westernness,” and thus it’s hard to think of it as “world music” as that term has been defined by marketers since at least the 1980s (“pygmy pop,” “Mysteries of the Bulgarian Voices,” and so on.) I wonder if this is a smarter(-ish) response than we’re giving it credit for.
Moreover, I also find it difficult to dance and think at the same time due to my Cartesian insistence on mind-body dualism.
first – im fascinated by Paul’s post, and the very real need to look at how the distribution/marketing of “world music” (the active kind, not the pre-packedge Putamaya kind – thats too obvious/not-trenchant/boring and not what were talking/digging about anyways) – im a big fan of Rupture’s latest piece over on his blog with regards 2 “playing parts” and suck at hyperlink so go read that with this in mind (?) but folks have def alluded to a rather played-out dynamic in “nuwhirld” distribution/marketing/bloghypefaderpitchfork world – what boils down 2 ‘hip male dj PRESENTS “sexualized/peacocking/colorful(re: ethnic?) female voice’?
“It’s a sentiment also echoed by my indie-rock loving friends who view electronic music as simply four-to-the-floor.”
this is a great comment Sasha, and one i get into real-world spats with folks about as well, being a MUSIC fan first and foremost, the whole TERM “indie rock” fucks me up, seeing a term that once meant something or signified a whole set of particular SOCIAL aspeks (DIY mindset, constant touring, ZINEs!, pre-internet means of approaching music in a distinctly post-Carter pre-Clinton, wide-open manner…) now means a “musical style” when 20 yrs ago it had NOTHING 2 do with sound or style or tempo or bookishwhiteboyswithguitars, just with a distribution ethos? (there is alot of sonic territory between Sonic Youth and the Slits (((and now somebody is gon b like “werent them girls post-punks?))) – the botttom line is we make all these SHITTY, ill-informed divisions and labels that sure, maybe on a good day help us sort this giant pile of amazing music coming at us from all corners, but its the DICHOTOMOUS relationship folks seem 2 have big-time with global sounds bouncing back at our jaded first-world ears being beholden back to that boring/tired “Cartesian” duality thing – to quote maybe the poster grrrl (did the hipsetbacklash already happen 2 her? glad i missed it cause im awaiting album #3 with excitement…) for this new distirbution/nu-whirlingg/dancemeetsidealsmeetsDIYinthedust “if yr dead from the waist then its easy staying down”….? i dunno, lots of thoughts!
here is that rupture article that fits perfect with paul’s marxisty reading? >>>>>>>>>>
http://culture.wnyc.org/articles/music-hub/2009/nov/30/put-thong-white-guy-and-see-how-he-likes-it/
xcuse my inability to link!
oh and thats “if youre dead from the waist DOWN its easy staying DOWN” – edit
Thanks to everyone for the continued convo, and esp to my main man Pat B for finally gracing this site with a comment! I can definitely agree with what you’re getting at, Pat, and that’s part of what made the email interesting to me — and worth posting. I definitely didn’t intend it simply as a straw man for us all to smack down. But although some of the responses above could perhaps be a little more charitable, I appreciate both the strong sentiments and the thoughtful analyses.
I guess what surprises me most w/r/t what people miss about “World Music 2.0” is that the entire concept is meant to explode the idea of “world music” (and whether can talk about Western vs. non-Western anymore) by recognizing that we don’t live in the same sort of world that generated world music 1.0 — that even something like Chicago juke can fit into a worldly appreciation of localized global genres. I do try to note, over and again, that there remains a certain desire for alter-authenticity creeping through the whole thing, but it’s a lot more complicated than that — and, if I may, without being too reductive, it’s also a lot more complicated than prior engagements with “the world” via Starbucks or Ry Cooder.
i was going to write all that in english but it came to mind in french firstly and i can’t be as exact in english :
so if someone have 5-10 min to lose and translate it, you’re welcome
thx for the comment, ghis! here’s my quick attempt to translate, w/ some help from google:
always appreciate having your voice in the mix! you’ve been a guide on my own theoretical and embodied voyages.
thanks wayne for the translation !
ain’t nuthing wrong with club music
really random weird addendum re: ry cooder – dude at least had good taste – while i may have viewed him initially as opportunistic (who isnt? or like, why not, in the rape-ish world of musik-biz?), the fact that the dude RECORDED with both Ali Farka Toure and Captain Beefheart out of a true desire to expose their music (even if none of them ever got along!!) is pretty cool and a softer angle on the continuity between world music 1.0 and world(whirled, rlly)music 4ever – point being, music lovers music makers and lovers of cultural continuity generally intersect by their very existence. ive got a lot of leeway for anybody who at least reaches out, and a californian that can play a mean slide guitar in multiple languages back in 196whatever is cool, even if that is my least fav ali farka toure recordin…
no doubt, ben, totally agreed. thanks for the addendum — glad you’re still thinking about these old convos!