Wayne(andwax) Describes the Best Things About “Nu Whirl” Music

The other day, I was trying to describe to an old friend what it was that distinguished the “global” music that I listen to now so much from the world music of yesteryear.  That’s because I simply enjoy the global music that is becoming prevalent now much more than the genre of world music that became well known back when I was in my 20s, in the 1980s.   This is especially true when I think of the world music back then not just as music originating in other countries, but as the better-known stuff being marketed as world music, produced and popularized by certain old rock or folk stars, etc. 

In my conversation with said friend, I mentioned that the global music that I like, which mostly comes from the contemporary dance scene(s), seems liveler, more spontanteous and more dynamic than much of the stuff that we got to recognize as world music a couple of decades ago.  But why is that?  I had trouble articulating that, which is why I am thankful to Wayne for pinpointing those distinctions so accurately:

In what we might call “trad” “world music” discourse (e.g., deriving largely from the marketing attempts of the 80s and 90s) - the language and images and ideas mediating the explorations of Paul Simon, David Byrne, and Ry Cooder, as well as such record labels as Rough Guide and Putumayo - authenticity is often conferred onto the traditional, the pristine, the timeless, the exotic, that which has been untainted by capitalism, by Western cultural imperialism more generally, etc.  Whereas the recent movements on the music blogosphere that I am thinking of tend to do the opposite: never mind these false ideas about purity, they seem to say, we want our global crunk, we want hybrids and fusions, we want mirror-mirror reflections and refractions of New World and Old World, North and South, East and West, we want music concerned with the future as much as (or more than) the past, we want drum machines and synthesizers and samples, for the local is always (trans)local and the global is (always already) here.

That, right there, is the essence of the difference that makes the new(er) global music so much more exciting.  Also, there is one other, very important point that Wayne mentioned in the next paragraph:

Moreover, we might go further and note the preference among devotees of the new “world music” for the low-fi and DIY rather than the slick and commercial…

That’s a significant difference that can be connected directly to the cultures of techno music, hip-hop and punk…which may be another reason that I’ve gravitated much more to the ”nu whirl” sounds.

The paragraphs that follow in the article are very good too (especially where he quotes M.I.A., of course), but there are two slight issues I might take with the generalizations expressed above…

First, as Wayne also knows, this contemporary global music was actually alive and thriving in different places a dozen years ago.  My first exposure to this kind of mixture and dynamic, at least as it emerged from the cultures of the large western metropolitan areas, was through Transglobal Underground, back in about 1993 or ‘94.  Of course, there had been all kinds of mixing of cultures, musics and technology going on in different genres, including hip-hop and (as Wayne has mentioned) early Asian Underground (thinking of Bally Sagoo, etc.).  But when I think about club music that’s known and  accessible to an ethnically diverse crowd - especially the variety that can even get through to white people - TGU definitely comes to mind. 

There were other bands  and DJs associated with the Nation Records group back in the early ’90s that fit into this category somewhat too.  Fun-Da-Mental did, though they were more intent on doing a sort of British-Pakistani answer to Public Enemy (at least back in the beginning), so they didn’t have quite the reach or diversity of TGU.  And there was Loop Guru, but they were more limited in an opposite way, much more heavily based on ambient and trance music.  It’s hard to think of another outfit coming out of the rave/techno scene(s) that mixed things up as much as TGU.    When I think of the mix tape ethos that people talk about today (e.g., the one described by Urb in their article about M.I.A.) I always think of Transglobal Underground.   

Another thing that I wanted to mention is that Wayne might be a little unfair in characterizing Rough Guides as an old-style world music label.  Actually, I have been surprised by the way Rough Guides has kept up with the times.

Recently, I picked up their Bhangra Dance compilation (which came out in 2006), and I think it’s one of the best contemporary compilations around.  I had gotten an earlier Rough Guide bhangra compilation several years ago, but I like this one much more.  And part of the reason, as the liner notes acknowledge, is the increase in diversity.  This comp ranges from bhangra-dancehall to bhangra-hip-hop to bhangra going back to traditional Indian folk music and wedding ceremonies.  If the comp had merely focused on the more traditional-sounding material, then this might be the sort of Rough Guide that Wayne was referring to.  But the more traditional sounds are delightfully complemented by the most contemporary hybrids.

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P.S.  A note about my personal history with TGU…  One thing that struck me when I first heard them was how much some of their stuff reminded me of Dead Can Dance.  Dead Can Dance was another good example of a group heavily influenced by music from a variety of different cultures (and eras, for that matter) which was somewhat different from the ventures of so many post-hippie world music popularizers at the time.  Maybe this  is because DCD had come out of a post-punk, goth culture, so they were a little darker and more minimalist from the beginning, and also had more of a DIY ethos.  But DCD also had their obvious nostalgia for music untouched by capitalism or modernism; it was a big part of their reason for being.  And their music often had a lower energy level better associated with world fusion ventures than with contemporary global club music.  (Much as I always loved them, you can’t say they were always full of frenetic energy.  Though they did do that rocking saltarello sometime back…)