[FA Worldmusic] The REAL ghetto: Nation of Origin?

[David Rogers]

Hi All,

 

I wonder if world music isn't limiting its prospects for genre-hopping by
another kind of "ghetto": the nation-of-origin record bin.  (You all
remember thumbing through these, back when there was a Tower Records?)

 

To a surprising extent, world music artists are still ghettoized by where
they and their music supposedly come from.  (Imagine if classical recordings
were divided by "Italian / German / British / Russian / American".)  This
classification may have worked 40 years ago, when world music consisted
mainly of field recordings.  But today, it's a distortion.

 

Where do you put a Brooklyn East-European-march-funk band like Slavic Soul
Party?  A composer like Golijov?  (oh, that's right, he's "classical")

 

The European market and press typically keep the geography buckets, but add
a category for "global fusion."  And it's not just a token gesture: this is
where many of the most acclaimed acts are filed.  But still, the system
obscures the truth that most of our most recognizable "regional" styles
(Malian blues? African rumba?) are plainly the result of fusion.

 

Back in the U.S. of A., many institutions have a strong bias towards the
nation-of-origin concept.  Everybody's looking to book the next Buena Vista
Social Club.  But take a look at the artists and you'll see that most of the
innovative new acts are polyglot in style (and ethnicity).

 

This is not just a music issue either.  If part of the value of world music
is that it contributes to a more global perspective in its audiences and the
countries that sustain it, then the American persistence in ghettoizing by
country speaks of a failure by our industry to move the American
consciousness.

 

 

David Rogers 

Jumbie Records Artist Management

http://www.JumbieRecords.com <http://www.jumbierecords.com/>