"World music". A marketing term invented in the 80s to create a section in record shops so there is somewhere for all non-western music to go, so that at least record shops would stock it. And to an extent it worked. But by lumping numerous different genres and sounds and bands from around the world, that are as different as metal is to hip hop is is to synthpop is to classical, all together in one place it also made it easy to dismiss. If someone heard some Indonesian Gamelan and hated it, then they might see no need to check out Nigerian funk, Turkish psych, Zimbabwean guitar bands or any of the other different sounds that all get lumped together.
To pick one act: Kanda Bongo Man. He redefined Congolese rhumba/soukous in the 80s, creating the Kwasa Kwasa sound. Previously the tunes would start with two or three minutes of a gentle rhumba song before stepping up the tempo and turning into another 5 to 12 minutes of dance tune. KBM started cutting straight to the dance bit. And he had guitarist Diblo Dibala, whose clean, fast guitar sound had enough energy to power a small city. Guitars were pushed to the front of the music and the whole sound of soukous changed. Diblo is an amazing guitarist, but no-one thinks of him when talking about the greatest guitarists as, y'know... 'world music'.
How underrated is Kanda Bongo Man? He played Glastonbury this year and the BBC didn't even bother to film him, being too excited about Rick Astley on the main stage. Criminally underrated.
www.urban75.net
