Worldbeat

Worldbeat
Stylistic origins	World music Traditional music Pop music Rock music Indie rock
Cultural origins	Mid-1980s, United States, United Kingdom
Typical instruments	Widely variable, though drums or percussion are constant
Mainstream popularity	Occasional, though not generally sustained
Subgenres
Afrobeat

Worldbeat is a music genre that primarily refers to a blending of Western pop music with traditional/folk or world music influences (examples in Section 2 of this article). The term is similar by definition to other category labels that refer to a cross pollination of contemporary and roots genres, and which suggest a rhythmic, harmonic or textural contrast between its modern and ethnic elements.

Terminology

Worldbeat is akin to World fusion and Global fusion, each of which primarily manifest as a blend of ethnic music tradition and Western, popular music. These particular music genres can also reflect in a cross-blend of more than one traditional flavor, producing innovative, hybrid expressions of world music. As with most "world" laden genre categories, worldbeat is not clearly defined as are the many classic world music sub-genres, such as Irish folk, Gamelon, or Calypso. In general, the expanding family of ethnic music sub-genres under the world music umbrella represents an intrinsically nebulous terminology, which depending on how one interprets a particular hybrid of world music, can be interchangeable to a significant degree. Worldbeat defines a hybrid of what can be listed under the generalized World music term, even though it features a prominent interbreeding with elements of Western, pop music.

As an ethnically coloured genre, worldbeat is a part of the world music movement that is steadily influencing popular music in every corner of the globe. This is partially due to the advance of digital music production and the availability of high quality ethnic music samples to artists and producers in the recording arts. The globalization of texture and style between indigenous and modern music genres has rapidly expanded the scope of 21st century, popular music, and continues to reshape how the world defines the increasing number of genres conceived with world music elements.

Distinction relative to World music

Worldbeat, World fusion and Global fusion are the most common and contemporary hybrid-genres that have naturally evolved under the broad World music genre term by default, since they are rarely represented in today's predominantly web-based music category lists and catalogs for artist promotion and listener music streaming. Their most prominent feature is an obvious meld between pop and indigenous culture, which often causes them to be indistinguishable from one another. Contemporary genre hybrids with world music elements naturally proliferate in proportion to the globalization of music culture on the whole. As the offspring of world and pop music, these categories are discrete from what is classically defined as world music, though most often, such hybrid genres are only given the choice of world with which to catalog themselves. Thus, the global perception of what can define world music has evolved to include a contemporary feature, and is only contradicting in proportion to one's adherence to world music in its classic context. Some world music artists and musicologists view any suggestion that pop-laden sub-genres, containing the term "world" fall under the world music genre, imposing. Other contemporary ethnomusicologists tend to agree that pop / traditional music hybrids exhibiting prominent ethno-influences, such as worldbeat, belong under the world music umbrella.

Similar terminology

Music genre terms that contain "world" are commonly subject to a very ambiguous consumer definition, due to the confusing similarity and overlapping interpretation of these categories. The world music category is inherently diverse, and offers limitless possibility for application in hybrid form, especially in mainstream, market-driven music. Worldbeat as a small sub-genre of popular music has a mounting consumer-perception as a hybrid sub-genre of world music, to the chagrin of world music purists. In its context as a liberally termed sub-genre under the world music umbrella, worldbeat is very similar to world fusion and Global fusion. The distinctions that delineate these hybrid, world terms are slight, and in many ways they are still being defined.

Examples

Mainstream popular artists

David Byrne, Peter Gabriel, Sting, and Paul Simon

World music / Ethnic fusion artists

Clannad, Enigma, Afro Celt Sound System, Värttinä, Dead Can Dance, Aomusic, Deep Forest, Zap Mama, Oumou Sangare, Karunesh, Han Hong,

===Indie artists, Ashwin Batish, Kirsty MacColl, Gang Gang Dance, NewVillager, Vampire Weekend and Yeasayer

History

Worldbeat as a coined genre emerged in the mid-1980s when popular, mainstream artists began incorporating world music influences into their sound. Initially, the most prominent influences came from Africa, Ireland, Asia, the Middle East and Latin America, though now encompass an ever-widening range of ethnic diversity. It has remained a thriving sub-genre of popular and world music, while continuing to influence new artists, especially those appearing on today's growing roster of indie record labels (artist examples cited in section 2 of this article). Some of Worldbeat's most successfully integrated folk elements include Celtic, Afrobeat, Mbaqanga, qawwali, highlife, rai, raga, samba, flamenco and tango.