What is world music and why does it exist?

World music is often associated with something from minority cultures or with music from the third world countries. In the Western countries it is often recognized as ‘the other’. It is produced locally but outside the Anglo-American countries. Music can be performed with their native language and unusual instruments (to the Westerns) and styles can be applied. However, not in all cases is world music produced locally. Major Western record labels have signed indigenous artists and discovered their unique sound as a money making machine. In these cases the original sound may be altered to sound more like Western music. Sometimes this hybridity in music has led to a change in their own local environment. Great examples of this are the popularity of Hip Hop in Asia and Western bubble gum Pop in Japan. Guilbault brought up the idea of transnationalism in music that has emerged as a result of post colonialism. Cultural Imperialism has ensured that Anglo-American music has become the standard form of pop having its’ main language English. Funnily enough, in many cases that is enough to have a CD categorized in the ‘world music section’ in HMV.