What is world music, and why do we have such a category?

World music as a genre is quite interesting in the fact that it contains music that often has little musical similarity, but it is sold to us in the same category. When we speak of Global Music, we talk of music that is sold all over the world, heavily marketed, and is often anglo-american in language, the “accepted standard global template”.

World music is often traditional indigenous local music from around the world, which has been marketed to us as world music; in other words it is music of non anglo-american language, it is music that doesn't fit into any of the other categories.

The cultural imperialist theory discusses the idea that multinational companies will 'buy up' many of these small indigenous musicians in an attempt to continue their monopoly on the sector. It could be said that world music has emerged because of this monopolisation.