is saying "i'm into world music" a good enough reason for me to dislike someone
i think it is.
there's so much baggage attached to the term "world music" that the use of it, without scare quotes and as a legitimate genre classification, immediately gets my hackles up.
mainly i consider it horribly patronising and indicative of a really wack-ass variety of cultural tourism, specifically undertaken from a kind of wholegrain elitist, paternalistic anti-pop position that grates on me something rotten when you consider that the very best in "world music" is actually simply "of the people" (actually the literal meaning of shaabi in arabic, apparently), just as much as dancehall, grime reggaeton etc.
am i being really intolerant here, or are these afro celt soundsystem types really as far beneath my contempt as i believe?
(fwiw, i have met many of these people, especially since i actually like quite a bit of music that isn't from the uk or the usa and happen to write about it now and again. very rarely have i liked any of them).
i think it is.
there's so much baggage attached to the term "world music" that the use of it, without scare quotes and as a legitimate genre classification, immediately gets my hackles up.
mainly i consider it horribly patronising and indicative of a really wack-ass variety of cultural tourism, specifically undertaken from a kind of wholegrain elitist, paternalistic anti-pop position that grates on me something rotten when you consider that the very best in "world music" is actually simply "of the people" (actually the literal meaning of shaabi in arabic, apparently), just as much as dancehall, grime reggaeton etc.
am i being really intolerant here, or are these afro celt soundsystem types really as far beneath my contempt as i believe?
(fwiw, i have met many of these people, especially since i actually like quite a bit of music that isn't from the uk or the usa and happen to write about it now and again. very rarely have i liked any of them).
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