Some uncomfortable truths about World Music
Joe Boyd’s masterly history of what some of us still defiantly call World Music – more on which later – takes its title from Paul Simon’s ‘Under African Skies’, but is really less about the roots of rhythm than its routes. A typical chapter will start with a song from a particular geography, then wind the clock back to the country’s history, then forward again to show how that history has contributed to the development of its music, and finally move outwards, following the trade winds as they carry the sounds around the world. The Argentine singer Carlos Gardel urges the young Frank Sinatra to turn from crime to music Thus
