Why are there Brazilian music videos with half a billion views on Youtube, of which I know neither title nor artist? Who selects for me here? Who draws my musical boundaries?
We all get to know music in the course of our socialization – mostly along a western dominated canon of pop music and its history. But pop music is a global phenomenon, divided into pop and hybrid pop. The latter encompasses all forms of combining western global pop and local music with its languages, instruments, melodies, rhythms, harmonies and compositions. In the meantime, this hybrid pop is being explored more and more – from the West. Once again, non-Western countries have no sovereignty over their own music history and cultural heritage. It is time for a decolonial approach to hybrid pop, which should also address the question of how to listen decolonially.