An American academic believes the term `world music’ is merely an excuse for music companies to indulge in music cannibalism, writes Anthea Garman
In the great age of discovery adventurers like Christopher Columbus sallied forth to explore the planet – with results that have continued to bedevil humanity into this century. Today in a similar flush of enthusiasm record producers “seek out the riches of the world to fuel the Western consumer market” and come back with sounds they package as “world music”.
Professor Ron Sakolsky, an academic from the University of Illinois, Springfield, is very critical of the term “world music”. Mostly he sees it as the marketing directors of huge music companies indulging in “music cannibalism”, plundering the exotic to “satisfy the needs lacking in the West by the traditional servants of the West – the rest of the world”. A sort of “musical Viagra” for the jaded.
Tower Records, one of the biggest music suppliers in the United States, says their world music section has tripled in the last decade and that market share in the US is now the same as for classical music and jazz (2%).
Sakolsky, who is visiting South Africa to give seminars on music in the African diaspora and to undertake a few missions of his own, says US record companies have given this kind of music lots of different names – all of which reinforce their cultural biases -ethnopop, tropical music (“world as a series of beaches for tourists”) and world beat.
In an attempt to understand this new phenomenon several definitions have been forwarded in US music magazines, among them: “any music in another language and not classical”; “any foreign music, not Britpop, Latin or reggae” and “some quotient of non- Western tradition”.
The problem with these Eurocentric labels is that they deny several things: that music is not a monolithic sound, so strictly there should be “world musics”; that Western music itself is diverse and has always relied heavily on borrowings from non-Western sources; and that music has a context – political and economic and sometimes spiritual – for example the mbira was originally used in the context of spirit possession.
“World music is a dangerous idea if it means all music other than Western music,” Sakolsky says.
But thankfully, despite the power and influence of the great marketing moguls, that isn’t the entire story. On any voyage of discovery there’s always an encounter – with some two-way traffic. “There’s the view from the ship and then there’s the view from the shore.”
Western popular music is invasive, it does submerge indigenous music in other places; and it often takes what it likes without attribution. But, that’s not a complete picture, says Sakolsky. What he sees here is a dialogue taking place “over the backyard fence” which is not in the control of the music moguls.
“African music often borrows African American elements selectively depending on what means the most. For example look at the world-wide influence of rap and the influence of James Brown on Fela Kuti who found that his polyrhythms made sense.
“So, we can’t be too simplistic about the idea of cultural imperialism. To believe that US rock music is white is to forget that it is inconceivable without the influence of African Americans.”
Sakolsky also takes issue with the notion that it’s possible to get to the roots of a music tradition and find an unblemished original source. “Music forms are not pure to begin with,” he says. “`Traditional’ doesn’t mean unchanging or wholly autonomous or a simple replication of the past. Folk music is never pure, it is not outside of time but has a living continuity.” We should think of traditional as “in the tradition, connected to the past, a place to create from”.
As a way to assess the situation around the popularity of world music Sakolsky offers some questions to ask. Does the music arise from the people who constitute its audience, or is it imposed from above? Does it indoctrinate or does it reflect their tastes and world views? Does it enrich or alienate these people? Does it challenge the social order? (Think of reggae.) Does it offer genuine choices? (For instance, is there a selection of music to choose from or just one seized-upon artist to epitomise a whole nation or tradition?)
Cross-pollination is vital to music. So does the grassroots vitality of a particular type of music increase or is it lost through its encounter with the West? Cultural encounter is a good thing, he says, but it is important to ask what exactly the nature of that encounter is.
For instance Sakolsky asks a class he teaches back home in Chicago: “Have you ever heard South African music?” The students routinely say no. Then he asks “Have you heard Paul Simon’s Graceland?” and everyone has. “They just don’t get it, it’s very sad,” he says. And if they do, they think that the sound of Ladysmith Black Mambazo is the only music that comes out of this country.