III.

History

While the term worldbeat was not widely used until the 1980s, non-Western genres of music had been introduced in Europe much earlier. German composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart imitated Turkish military music in his famous “Turkish March” of 1778 (K. 331), and French composer Georges Bizet used a popular Cuban habanera tune (a 19th-century dance form) in his opera Carmen (1875). With the advent of records, several non-Western music styles came to enjoy considerable popularity in Europe and the United States from the 1920s. Hawaiian music was perhaps the single most popular genre of commercial music in the United States in the 1920s. During the 1940s and 1950s the United States experienced the so-called mambo craze, the chachachá fad, and the successful marketing of Trinidadian calypso by American singer Harry Belafonte. In the early 1960s a handful of records that derived from distinct ethnic origins achieved places on the Billboard magazine Top-40 charts, including a rock-and-roll-style recording of the Mexican folk song “La Bamba” (1959), performed by rock singer Ritchie Valens (see Rock Music: Rock and Roll); a version of “My Boy Lollipop” (1964), performed by Jamaican singer Millie Small as a ska (fast style of dance music) song; and “Pata Pata” (1967), written and performed by South African vocalist Miriam Makeba. Several Brazilian bossa novas became commercial hits as well as jazz standards, including “The Girl from Ipanema” (1964) by Brazilian composer Antonio Carlos Jobim.

It was not until the 1970s, however, that music styles from outside the Western mainstream came to be widely appreciated as more than fads or novelty items. In particular, Jamaican reggae, especially as performed by singer Bob Marley, achieved phenomenal international popularity. Reggae, whose antecedent, ska, developed partly as a Jamaican reinterpretation of American R & B music, became popular not only for its compelling rhythms and its soulful melodies, but also for its ideology. Expressed via the Afrocentric principles of the West Indian Rastafarian religion, reggae's fervent and utopian message of liberation, idealism, and justice had worldwide appeal. As rock-music audiences bought Marley's records, and as musicians such as British rock guitarist Eric Clapton recorded reggae songs, a new dimension of internationalism and multiculturalism entered the music industry worldwide.