Globalization and West African Music Steven J. Salm* Department of History, Xavier University of Louisiana Abstract The interplay between the forces of globalization and West African music reflects complex pro- cesses of adoption and adaptation by West African musicians and their audiences. The pace of globalization and changes in West African popular music accelerated in the latter half of the 20th century due to changes in technology that allowed for more rapid movement of people and ideas. Scholars often make a clear distinction between traditional music and popular music but, as this article shows, the processes that lead to West African musical development blur those lines by linking the past to the present, merging African and non-African musical styles, and highlighting artists who reside in multiple localities and manage a mosaic of cultural resources in the age of globalization. A discussion about globalization in the context of West African music elicits varied and complex interpretations that serve to illuminate important debates within and between relevant subject areas. This essay will present, first, some of the difficulties in defining this relationship in terms of global cultures and African agency. Second, it will look at a few characteristics that represent the processes of globalization within different forms of West African music, and third, it will provide examples of various West African music forms that not only reflect these shared processes but also reveal the many different historical experiences of societies within the region. In short, this essay will attempt to condense and coalesce the connection between globalization and West African music around a few common characteristics while also reemphasizing complexities within unique historical environments. A discussion of globalization in Africa generally begins with the growth of capital and hegemonic economic power exercised by western powers since the end of the Second World War. 1 However, the proliferation of not only economic but also global political, social, and cultural ideas has been taking place since the beginning of human civilization. Increasingly, scholars are now realizing the need to broaden the definition of globalization beyond its original focal and temporal boundaries. Stanley Fischer, the First Deputy Man- aging Director of the International Monetary Fund, emphasized this quite clearly at the 2001 France–Africa Summit: First, globalization is multi-faceted, with many important dimensions – economic and social, political and environmental, cultural and religious – which affect everyone in some way.… Second, globalization is not new. Economic globalization is as old as history, a reflection of the human drive to seek new horizons. 2 Globalization, then, is extremely complex and demands that researchers go beyond disciplinary boundaries and beyond periodization. One must take a more holistic and multi-dimensional approach, incorporating an analytical model that considers the interac- tions of economic, political, and socio-cultural forces as well as the interplay between global and local systems. History Compass 8/12 (2010): 1328–1339, 10.1111/j.1478-0542.2010.00750.x ª 2010 The Author History Compass ª 2010 Blackwell Publishing Ltd