What is world music?

To first understand world music, the ideas of local and global music must be explored . Local usually refers to indigenous music and global refers to music that is available world wide. However these terms are not so distinguishable as what may be considered to be indigenous can be owned by a worldwide corporation and many western artists can adopt the sounds of indigenous music. Music of certain nations can be influenced in a process known as cultural imperialism. Cultural imperialism is the idea of a nation, i.e. American and the UK, taking over other nations, ie France and Canada, in terms of culture, therefore Anglo American popular music becomes the template for foreign artists.  However, it is argued that in our growing multicultural society, the idea of a nation state has become redundant. In conclusion I believe that world music is simply a category for record companies to take indigenous music does not have an Anglo American sound and market it to a global audience.