World Music Publications

by Paul-Emile Comeau

When the year 2000 comes around there is one anniversary that will undoubtedly go unheralded. It will be 40 years since Toronto media philosopher Marshall McLuhan coined the term "global village." There have been a few world music crazes in this century, the first one being Hawaiian music, which had its origins in San Francisco in 1915, with the tango fad appearing 10 years later.

There is now so much of what Texas musician Dan Del Santo christened "world beat" available that it's hard to keep up with any single country's output, let alone a continent's, and information about world music is readily available, even if much of the media still have a narrow concept of it. Rock and pop stars such as Paul Simon, David Byrne, and Peter Gabriel helped popularize some of these genres and their hybrids and there are now specialty world music publications (reggae, Latin, Irish, traditional) -- and a few can be found online. Most music magazines, such as Crossroads, a trade publication which calls itself "The Folk, Roots & World Music Resource," have made it a point to include world music coverage and reports.

The Beat, the first national magazine of its kind in the U.S., prides itself in covering "Reggae, African, Caribbean, and World Music." Reggae Beat, as it was first called, started out in 1982 as a 14" single-page newsletter with one photo, which was sent out with the help of a radio program's mailing list. In 1985 the editors changed the name to Reggae and African Beat, and that same year they switched to a glossy cover. It became The Beat in 1988. In close to 100 pages, each bi-monthly issue of The Beat contains an overwhelming amount of information in its columns and reviews. It originally made for a layout that was a bit cramped and graphics that weren't of the highest quality, but these have been getting better in recent years. The Beat, which puts out an annual Festivals issue (as well as one on Bob Marley and a "Best of the Year" issue), is still the most complete source for information on reggae and Caribbean music.

There are twelve more publications discussed in this column. Read the full column, including contact information, in Dirty Linen #83 (August/September '99)
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