by ERNEST A. JASMIN

In the ’90s “grunge” could mean Nirvana or Alice in Chains, bands that had little more in common with each other than geography, eardrum-splitting decibels and tragic lead singers.

Today, “emo” – a term nearly universally despised by all it is applied to – is the umbrella used to cover such dissimilar acts as Death Cab for Cutie, Sparta and Jimmy Eat World.

But especially dated and overly broad, say many, is the so-called “world music” genre.

The term was first concocted in the 1980s to market indigenous folk sounds being imported to the United States and England, for which there was previously no unifying bin at your local record store. For years the phrase, aka “world beat,” mostly inspired notions of rustic, traditional tunes from remote corners of the world.

But not so today. The Internet and other mass media have sent the rate at which the world’s musical styles cross-pollinate one another into hyperdrive. And in the new millennium, “world music” has come to signify everything from the traditional Latin sounds of Toto La Momposina, Mariana Montalvo and Belo Velloso – the main attractions of “Latinas: Women of Latin America,” a showcase scheduled for Nov. 22 at the Rialto Theater and Nov. 23 at Seattle’s Moore Theatre – to East Indian flavored techno and African hip-hop.

The ever-expanding array of artists tangled in world music’s bulging net can be mind-boggling. Or so feels Darek Mazzone, the Seattle disc jockey who spins grooves from around the globe on KEXP/KXOT-FM (91.7 in Tacoma), KUOW-FM (94.9) and KMTT-FM (103.7), as well as at Seattle clubs.

“It’s ludicrous because it’s two-thirds of the world’s music,” Mazzone says. “How can it fit into one term?

“World music can be anything from a pop star to someone who takes a microphone out and records pygmies in the Congo,” he says, “to someone like MC Solaar, who is one of the biggest rappers in the world coming out of France.”

Especially frustrated that there was no specific label for the urban sounds he favors – often a fusion of American and European dance music and folk styles across the world – he came up with his own. He calls it “modern global.”

It’s a peg that, thanks to the worldwide audience KEXP enjoys online and the DJ’s contacts with many of the world big shots who visit Seattle, has started to stick.

“I’ve heard Zuco 103 call themselves that,” Mazzone says, referring to a Netherlands-based acid-jazz group was a hit at Bumbershoot 2003.

Mazzone’s term applies to a genre that’s growing by leaps and bounds. And while artists such as Youssou N’Dour, Angelique Kidjo, Bebel Gilberto and Kinky are nowhere near competing with 50 Cent and Avril Lavigne for the top of the pop charts, their sounds are turning up in mainstream U.S. circles with growing regularity.

“You may not realize it, but you’re hearing world music in commercials,” says Dan Storper, founder of Putumayo, the record label sponsoring the “Women of Latin America” showcase. “Now almost every Hollywood movie not only has one but several world music songs in it.”

Marketing the world

Of course, world grooves aren’t entirely new to American pop fans. Brazilian singer and actress Carmen Miranda became a star here in the 1930s. Harry Belafonte helped popularize calypso in the ’50s.

In the ’60s, the Beatles and the Rolling Stones were among the popular rock stars that dabbled with Middle Eastern and Indian instrumentation, And by the ’70s, Bob Marley had become one of the most recognizable musicians in the world as he carried reggae – a fusion of Jamaican folk styles and American soul – to the masses. Peter Gabriel, David Byrne and Paul Simon carried the world music torch in the ’80s.

Simon famously assimilated the sounds of South Africa in his 1986 album “Graceland.”

Gabriel and Byrne founded their own world music record labels – Real World and Narada, respectively. And Gabriel also founded the WOMAD (World of Music and Dance) festival, world music’s equivalent of Lollapalooza. (The festival was last held at Redmond’s Marymoor Park, its only U.S. stop, in 2002. However, there are rumors of a forthcoming WOMAD U.S. tour.)

Many pinpoint the early to mid-’90s as a watershed period during which a number of factors boosted world music popularity.

Putumayo began in New York as an import-export business. Storper had always collected music while traveling abroad, but it was not until 1990 that he was awakened to the possibility of releasing world music compilations by his customers’ positive reactions to the mix tapes he played in his stores.

“There (are) limited mainstream outlets for the music,” he said. “But when people hear it … there is something that really connects people to these other cultures.”

Though no world music stars have really become household names, clearly more and more fans are jumping on the bandwagon. When Putumayo started issuing compilations, a world music CD that sold 10,000 to 15,000 copies was considered a success.

“Now, regularly, there are albums … by people like (Brazilian bossa nova star) Bebel Gilberto … that have sold in the hundreds of thousands of copies in the United States,” Storper says.

A WIDE WORLD ONLINE

He and others point to myriad factors.

The Internet’s impact can hardly be overstated. “My project would not be a possibility without the Internet,” says Seattle entrepreneur Michael Eastman, who launched the subscriber-supported Web site Chondo.net – dedicated to “music of the African Diaspora, from Afro pop to hip-hop” – in August.

“The Internet is really important,” he says. “It’s a worldwide platform for presenting content; a worldwide platform for presenting content has never existed before.”

Others point to mass migrations, such as the influx of West Indians and people from southern Asia to the United Kingdom.

Storper likens what is happening to world music today with what happened as Southern blues musicians made their way north on Highway 61 in the mid-20th century. It’s like “the fusion that happened as blues artists moved from the Delta to Chicago and suddenly the blues became electrified,” he said. “There is no such thing as pure music and pure culture any more. There has just been too much interaction.”

Eastman and Mazzone underscore the impact of hip-hop and underground DJ culture – art forms that thrive on sampling.

“You’ve got these filters, whether it’s hip-hop or whether it’s house or acid jazz,” Mazzone said. “You have these genres that feed on new ideas and are able to tap into all these ideas that are going on.”

The superstar rave DJ had risen by the mid-’90s. And their travels informed the music they played when they got back home.

“DJs were always trying to find new stuff. And they travel and were able to get the stuff and put them on compilation CDs,” Mazzone said, point to Universal’s “Buddha Bar” as one of the more popular series. “So you ended up finding these CDs in all of these kind of hipsters homes.”

But world fusion has gone far beyond an underground phenomenon. One need look no further than American Top 40 to put things in full context.

Sting scored a big comeback hit when he and Middle Eastern singer Cheb Mami duetted on “Desert Rose” in 1999. A few years later, American rap titan Jay-Z teamed up with England’s Panjabi MC for the Banghra-flavored club hit “Beware of the Boys.”

And all of that is not to mention the unprecedented access that Latin pop stars have had to the U.S. market, from Ricky Martin to Shakira.

“Pop music at its best is a giant petri dish, full of living musical organisms – they clash, they blend, they procreate, and those new organisms create new hybrids,” Sting writes in the November issue of Vanity Fair. “The assimilation of so-called world music into mainstream pop is as exciting a development as any in the history of pop music.”