When people bring up the idea of world music, they are generally about to chew your ear off about Bulgarian folk music or Tibetan nose-flute bands. But world music shouldn’t be regarded as niche pockets of traditional music that, outside its cultural home, only gets played at upper-echelon dinner parties, if it gets played at all.
No, world music is something else entirely. It is music made where cultures have merged due to the movement of people, where genre and even geography are no longer hurdles to creativity, where modern technology and sonic traditions blend, where occident meets orient, where the music of continents collide, where the past and the present dance together to make the sound of the future.
And if you accept that as a premise, world music is everywhere we look, not least in this new release from Brett Schieber. Aided and abetted by Témi & RakJay, he gives us a song that runs on wonderfully lilting reggaeton grooves, brilliantly meandering bass lines, and Nile Rogers-esque guitar licks. He also weaves in beguiling electronica, shimmering percussion and scratched turntablism. And vocally, the song wanders between Temi’s soulful sound and Rakjay’s bi-lingual raps.
Stop for a minute and think about all the different musical elements that make up the song. If that isn’t the definition of world music, music that genuinely represents a coming together of far flung people, music that makes the world a smaller and more connected place, then I don’t know what is.
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