Another of those over the top Simon Reynolds articles. This time trying to make sense of the new collision of "World Music" with western musical genres. This quote caught my eye. "Now a curious kid in Brooklyn can track down an Azerbaijani song in seconds." I wonder if this isn't exactly backwards. What music is being created by curious kids in Azerbaijan who can access the cutting edge of obscure Brooklyn hip hop in seconds? I have some second hand direct experience of this in the form of middle eastern producers who came to London to get closer to the post-dubstep they had fallen in love with.
Where this gets interesting is not academic articles about the rise in interest in obscure bands like Os Mutantes (60s Brazilian Psychedelia playing Glastonbury 2010) but in new music fusion emerging from the 3rd world. How are western musics affecting 3rd world musical trends? What are the cool kids in Mongolia creating? How is the rebellion of disaffected youth in Chinese instant cities expressed in the music they listen to and create? What's playing on the headphones of a teenage soldier in Somalia?