ABSTRACT
A consideration of the place of “world music” within contemporary French culture requires some introductory remarks to set the discussion in context. It is important to stress the ambiguities inherent in the term: while obviously Anglo-American in origin, it circulates widely in France, though duplicated by expressions like musiques du monde or musique(s) mondiale(s). French use of this Anglo-American term and French-language expressions deriving from it illustrate the complexities involved in categorizing and appreciating forms of music when they travel from a local to a global setting. If we follow Martin Roberts and take world music as “simply the music sold in the world-music sections of major record stores throughout the Western (and partly non-Western) capitalist world” (Roberts 1992: 231), it becomes clear that it is not a stable category: in Paris, francophone African and Caribbean artists are included, but not the French rock and variétés [popular music] that are found in the world music section of a New York store. Overall, the principle of differentiation from existing categories of music (rock, jazz, and dance music) flows not so much from linguistic or musical otherness as from racial and ethnic differences.
