Currently used to classify the many genres of non-Western music which were previously described as 'folk music' or 'ethnic music'. However, world music does not have to mean traditional folk music; it may refer to the indigenous classical forms of various regions of the world and also to modern pop music styles. Music from around the world exerts wide cross-cultural influence as styles naturally influence one another, and in recent years world music has also been marketed as a successful genre in itself.

In musical terms, world music can be roughly defined as music which uses distinctive ethnic scales, modes and musical inflections, and which is usually (though not always) performed on or accompanied by distinctive traditional ethnic instruments, such as the kora, steel drum, sitar and didgeridoo. Examples of popular forms of world music include the various forms of non-European classical music (e.g. Japanese koto music, Hindustani raga music, Tibetan chants), eastern European folk music (e.g. the village music of Bulgaria) and the many forms of folk and tribal music of the Middle East, Africa, Asia, Oceania and Central and South America.