The New World Manifesto...(or, Against the Incense Stick)
So-called "world music" has reached a turning point. It is time for a new generation
of travelers, immigrants, expats and half-breeds to use the melodies and rhythms
available to us, in abundance previously unimaginable, to express our understanding
of our world. We have reached a moment when world music must engage with reality;
where it must focus on the world and make music merely a vehicle.
For too long, world music has been polarized. On one side, the world fusion product
for the mass market which cuts-and-pastes non-Western melodies and rhythms into
an easy-to-clap, easy-to-dance, easy-to-hum listening 'experience', stripped of
any sort of serious context. On the other side, a small but dedicated group of serious
Indian, Africa, Asian and American artists who preserve and renew their own traditions;
each rooted in his or her own time and place yet all lumped together on the "world
music" shelf. This is the world music market of today: on one side, an empty blend;
on the other, complete separation.
What is missing is the genuine encounter: music which speaks to a new global, cross-cultural
reality. Music which means something to people for whom time and place mean little.
Music which respects the cultural origins of melodies and rhythms while endlessly
combining and recombining them to create new shapes and ideas. Music which understands
that respecting the cultural content of our musical raw material rules out a bland,
mass-marketed product. Music filled with spiritual, political, and social questions.
Music which reads the newspaper.
We live in a time when world music - especially what we call "world fusion" - should
be at its peak. The past four decades have given us low-cost travel (and with it
the expansion of the mass audience's cultural horizons); new musical forms to draw
on, such as punk, hip-hop and electronica; a technological revolution whereby anyone
with a laptop and a microphone can create studio-quality recordings; and more information
about people and events, their history, their arguments, their psychology and their
contradictions than any other generation before us. We live in a time when combining
and re-interpreting is virtually second nature.
Yet so little of today's world music reflects this reality. We can find sitar players
trading solos with blues guitarists; here and there, we find a few common notes,
a recognizable rhythm. But when we are asked the obvious questions - what is the
music about? What is it trying to say, and who does it speak to? What do the lyrics
mean? - there is no answer.
A new generation has come of age and with it must come a new kind of world music.
We already see artists such as Nitin Sawhney and Manu Chao freely mix French or
Hindi poetry with reggae or electronica, trusting that their well-traveled and well-read
audiences will 'get it'. Their art reflects their own questions and experiences,
exploring race, religion, immigration, identity and anxiety. Their music makes the
listener think and feel at the same time. They avoid the temptation to be merely
danceable or evoke a background 'mood', to create music for incense sticks. They
provoke and they entertain. Their art reflects the insatiable appetite of a globalized
world.
It is a new kind of music that defies easy categorization and side-steps the polarized
world music market. The music does not rely only on catchy or 'cool' rhythms or
melodies but personal answers to bigger questions. The songs feel complete; the
mix of styles feels natural; there is neither dilution nor separation. The listener's
ear does not separate reggae beats from Spanish lyrics from electronic samples because
the ideas are the focus of attention, binding all the elements together. The music
avoids asking what is 'authentic' and what is not, recognizing that experience honestly
told is authenticity defined. It manages to both be relevant and respectful at the
same time.
It is time for 'world musicians' to stop speaking only to each other and start speaking
to the world. And when we are asked what we are trying to say, we will more easily
be able to answer.
