XLR8R

"World music" is a horrible idea. It makes you think of corny CDs with "native" drawings that are sold at the Nature Company; stuff to twirl around to at hippie festivals, songs that aging beardos play at dinner parties to seem well-traveled. The term itself is offensive, creating an artificial distance that places Western music on a pedestal, and music from "the rest of the world" into a bin labeled "exotic" or "outdated" or "unintelligible."

But there's a new musical Esperanto emerging, as technology makes it possible for musicians to collaborate across time zones and machines are manipulated to form a lexicon of rhythm and sound that's at once globally understood and individual. Where the difference in structure and sonics between, say, a European orchestra and a "traditional" band from Angola might have once been too wide for the average ear to traverse, modern Angolan electronic music–kuduro–has elements in common with punk, deep tribal house, and even Daft Punk.

Musical cross-pollination has been happening as long as people have been moving around the globe. "Orchestra Baobab from Senegal takes its inspiration from Cuban salsa, and Colombian champeta contains elements of Congolese soukous and Jamaican ragga," points out musician Maga Bo, who contributes soundsystem photos from all over the world to this piece. Nevertheless, technology is accelerating the rate and depth of this process, making it possible for a California native and a Tanzanian taxi driver to bond over 50 Cent, and a Philly bike messenger to geek out to Brazilian baile funk.

Referring to "the new" world music is our joking reference to seeing "world music" differently, but also a way to suggest that we're listening to and making the music of a "new world," where borders are routinely crossed and a dancefloor is a dancefloor, no matter where it is. We'd love to bring you a full-on special about Japanese dancehall or Johannesburg kwaito, but in the meantime, we asked some our favorite world travelers for some missives from the field.

Vivian Host

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