The Influence of World Music, Ska, and Latin Pop on Social Formation

Although ska, Latin pop, and world music are extremely different sounding genres, all three manage to share some similarities in the way the music influences social formation. World music can be defined as any music that merges both traditional elements of music with new features and ideas to create an original sound, and thus encompasses both ska and Latin pop. These two genres combined their culture's traditional musical elements with new American styles to create an original sound that helped to unify a group of people and create a certain social formation. During the 1960s artists in Jamaica combined traditional Caribbean mento and calypso sounds with new American R&B elements to create an upbeat and vivacious music for the country’s youth to celebrate their liberation from Britain as well as express their frustrations of the extreme poverty that existed. Latin pop utilizes traditional elements from genres such as salsa, meringue, mariachi, and rumba to form a new sound that all the Hispanic countries relate to and listen to together. Ska and Latin pop as a part of world music both combine traditional and western musical influences that transcend borders and nationalities to help create a unified social identity.

Zachary Gottlieb

Kenneth Jjombwe

Kelsey Wiseman