"I hate world music. That's probably one the most perverse reason I have been asked to write about it" (Byrne 1). Those were the words of David Byrne introducing his position, feelings and attitude towards the term "world music." The above quotation not only sets the tone of Byrnes argument, but it also represents his disillusions with the term "world music.' Personally, I do not believe Byrne hates "world music"; in fact he is passionate about "world music."

Byrne is very disappointed with the way anything that is anti-western popular culture is portrayed- in this case, "world music." He believes that regardless of stereotypes everyone should have access to this kind of music. "World music" is constantly being suppressed and oppressed, it's not prolific and this limits its ability to saturate the market and maximize its true industry power. Byrne is appalled by the constant "Them and Us" categorizing and separating that the American culture has been doing with "world music." He sees this as a strategic and organized way of dismissing anything that is anti-western popular culture in style, taste and appeal. Byr

America considers itself the center and focal point of everything. They set the criteria by which films are judged and rewarded. Failure to appeal to the taste, preferences and standards set by the Americans guarantees market failure. I recall the 72nd Annual Academy Award Ceremony where two non-western films (Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon and Life is Beautiful) suffered what I consider the most blatant act of prejudice. I must confess that they did in fact experienced some level of success that night has both films was nominated for the top honor categories. (Best Film and Best foreign Film). However, this was inconsequential compared to the injustice that was observed that night. They were both deserving of the top honor but were cheated out of it. Crouching Tiger hidden Dragon received the award for Best Foreign Film. There are also other international actors like Jackie Chan and Jet Li experiencing the same level of prejudice. America discriminates against anything that is non-western in presentation yet they're the main beneficiaries of capitalization, taking aspects of non-western culture and incorporating it into their music and filmmaking. On the contrary, non-western movi

Some common words found in the essay are:
David Byrne, Jet Li, Gloria Estefan, Foreign Film, Award Ceremony, Life Beautiful, Academy Award, Nicole Kidman, Pop Culture, world music, Crouching Tiger, academy award, top honor, standards set, foreign film, academy award ceremony, popular culture, award ceremony, crouching tiger hidden, non-western films, crouching tiger, film foreign film, set americans, standards set americans, tiger hidden dragon,
Approximate Word count = 801
Approximate Pages = 3 (250 words per page double spaced)