Inside one Talking Head
In 1999, former frontman of art-rock band Talking Heads David Byrne wrote an angry article called I Hate World Music, for The New York Times, in which he criticised the term “world music” as both absurd and reductive. I remember the article well and agreed with much of what he wrote, particularly the notion that such a term lumped together Congolese dance music and Bulgarian choral ensembles…