When Peter Gabriel launched the first WOMAD festival in 1982—on a Somerset fairground with China's Tian Jin and the Burundi Drummers—non-Western music was virtually unknown in the pop world. Today, world music gets mainstream attention in publications such as Billboard, which has a regular world music chart. And its recordings, once hidden in the back of record stores in dusty international sections, receive prominent front-racking. Just check out the vast world-music display at HMV's megastore on Yonge St. Meanwhile, worldbeat's diverse sounds are featured in popular weekly radio shows like Global Rhythms, heard Saturday mornings locally on CIUT-FM. Toronto, in fact, is a hotbed for world m...
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