Editing Music of the United States (section)

==Diversity==
[[File:USmusicmap.png|center|upright=3.6|The United States is home to a wide array of regional styles and scenes.]]
The United States is often said to be a cultural [[melting pot]], taking in influences from across the world and creating distinctively new methods of cultural expression. Though aspects of American music can be traced back to specific origins, claiming any particular original culture for a musical element is inherently problematic, due to the constant evolution of American music through transplanting and hybridizing techniques, instruments and genres. Elements of foreign musics arrived in the United States both through the formal sponsorship of educational and outreach events by individuals and groups, and through informal processes, as in the incidental transplantation of [[music of West Africa|West African music]] through slavery, and [[music of Ireland|Irish music]] through immigration. The most distinctly American musics are a result of cross-cultural hybridization through close contact. Slavery, for example, mixed persons from numerous tribes in tight living quarters, resulting in a shared musical tradition that was enriched through further hybridizing with elements of indigenous, Latin, and European music.<ref name="Cowdery">Cowdery, James R. with Anne Lederman, "Blurring the Boundaries of Social and Musical Identities" in the ''Garland Encyclopedia of World Music'', pp. 322–333.</ref> American ethnic, religious, and racial diversity has also produced such intermingled genres as the French-African music of the [[Louisiana Creole people|Louisiana Creoles]], the Native, Mexican and European fusion [[Tejano music]], and the thoroughly hybridized [[slack-key guitar]] and other styles of modern [[Hawaiian music]].

The process of transplanting music between cultures is not without criticism. The folk revival of the mid-20th century, for example, appropriated the musics of various rural peoples, in part to promote certain political causes, which has caused some to question whether the process caused the "commercial commodification of other peoples' songs ... and the inevitable dilution of mean" in the appropriated musics. The use of African American musical techniques, images, and conceits in popular music largely by and for white Americans has been widespread since at least the mid-19th century songs of [[Stephen Foster]] and the rise of [[minstrel show]]s. The American music industry has actively attempted to popularize white performers of African American music because they are more palatable to mainstream and middle-class Americans.{{Citation needed|reason=To provide evidence for this argument.|date=May 2020}} This process has been related to the rise of stars as varied as [[Benny Goodman]], [[Eminem]], and [[Elvis Presley]], as well as popular styles like [[blue-eyed soul]] and [[rockabilly]].<ref name="Cowdery"/>