Interpreting world music: a challenge in theory and practice

Abstract

This article focuses on the issue of meanings in ‘world music’ practices. The main questions addressed are how such musical cultures take on meanings, and what meanings are constructed by such cultures. As Deborah Pacini has indicated, the term ‘world music’ in this case does not refer to a musical genre. It is used, rather, ‘[as] a marketing term describing the products of musical cross-fertilisation between the north – the US and Western Europe – and south – primarily Africa and the Caribbean Basin, which began appearing on the popular music landscape in the early 1980s’ (1993, p. 48). From 1985, the expanding ‘world music’ umbrella has come to include practically any musics of cultures of non-European origin.