Week 4 - What is world music and why does it exist?

World music is a genre that covers all music that is not part of mainstream pop music within Western Europe and North America (English speaking countries). It has an "ethnic" element to it that can be seen as pop music that embodies influences from the third world. World music has sounds that reflect a particular culture through the use of geographically specific musical structure, instruments, and lyrics that can also reflect a cultural, social, and even political realism. As an audience we can determine world music as a musical style that is rooted to a culture which is opposed to our own. When musical styles and cultures mix using a range of cultural instruments and styles it is called world fusion. Meaning, it doesn't necessarily matter where an artist is from or their background, if a performer uses different ethnic influences that are apparent in song then that is World Music. Robinson, Buck and Cuthbert indicated that international and local sounds are being fused to create world music, and an example of this is Punjabi MC who has taken Asian cultural music and fused it with a Western hip-hop beat. This music exists as we live in a globalise world where culture plays influence on the music that is made in each country. Without it a distinctive sense of national identity would not be distinguished. It can be said this genre is used as a marketing device, sometimes referring to any kind of foreign music, especially in a foreign language.