Global gathering

Meet the vital acts who count as so much more than 'world music'
'Whatever you do, don't call it a world music issue,' Damon Albarn said over a cup of coffee in west London the other month. Wearing his Gorillaz hat, he had just returned from China, where he had been working on a forthcoming album which looks like it will involve 100-plus musicians singing in Mandarin. His point was that - particularly in such turbulent times - it's silly, and even irresponsible, to box off the rest of the world when it comes to making or listening to music, labelling it as 'other'. Besides, we'd be missing out on so much fun. No one is denying that the term 'world music' once served a noble purpose, securing shelf-space, radio play and column inches for two generations of artists from around the globe who otherwise ran the risk of being neglected. Increasingly, through perpetuating stereotypes of what we expect of music from outside the Western mainstream as well as of the audience for it, the concern is that the term has become a barrier to acceptance. But perhaps that is now changing ...

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