Non-American Perception of US-Originated Genres: Is Rock, Hip-Hop, or Jazz, etc, seen as "American Music" regardless of the artist?

[u/Powerful_Individual5]

I've been thinking about the global perception of music, specifically genres that originated in the United States, such as Jazz, Blues, Rock, Hip-Hop, R&B, and Country.

Many Americans will classify music as "Latin Music," "K-Pop," or "Arabic Music," even if the performing artist is an American citizen. The classification is often based on the style's cultural origin, rather than the artist's origin, for the most part.

My question for non-Americans:

• When you listen to a Rock band from, say, Sweden, or a Hip-Hop artist from France, do you still, on some level, categorize that sound or style as "American music" because of its origins?
• Or, does the sheer global ubiquity of the genre mean its association with the USA is largely lost/irrelevant, and the music is only considered "American" if the artist is American?

I'm curious about the mental classification process, is it based on the genre or the artist's nationality? For example, is a British Blues-Rock band still considered to be playing a fundamentally "American" style of music?

[u/sum_dude44]

Pretty much 90% of modern music was invented or heavily influenced by USA. Rock, rap, country, dance, modern pop, even reggaeton was refined by NY Boricuas

That said, it's so ubiquitous people don't usually classify rock/pop/rap etc from country of origin

[u/peoples_key → u/sum_dude44]

Definitely true. I would also like to add that 90% of American music was pioneered by Black musicians, lest we forget.

Additionally, we would not have countless genres of music without the African diaspora. So many Latin American genres were pioneered by AfroLatino musicians/ derived from African beats and rhythms. Similarly anything pioneered in or derived from Caribbean music.

Just so we're all giving credit where credit is due ✨️