The chapter illuminates diverse musical encounters or engagements between ‘minority’ cultures and what was, until recently, an Anglo-Australian majority over four periods of social, cultural and political foment between the pre-Federation colonial era and the present. It first examines the pre-WWI musical contributions of German-speaking residents and visitors, and Italian and Jewish influence on musical entertainment in the inter-war and post-war era. It then considers how, from the 1980s, the twin forces of local multiculturalism and ‘world music’ intersected in Australia to foster a wealth of musical diversity, including creative musical interventions and experimentations. We also consider the many multi-faceted present-day music ‘scenes’ associated with diasporic communities by honing into the local world of Indonesia-related music-making in Australia. Music of minority cultures tends to become articulated through uneven power relationships with the majority culture and its institutions, but the chapter provides a more nuanced view of this relationship. It demonstrates, for example, how ‘minority’ musicians have strategically deployed the ‘power’, or value, of ‘difference’ for professional or other advantage, exploiting opportunities provided by the mainstream, which can simultaneously shape and even redefine minority music.

Chapter 5 traces the legacy of Bani Thani’s contribution to Kishangarhi artistic and literary production. First, it explores whether her poetry inspired Kishangarhi paintings, presenting correlations between the two. Next is presented her “spiritual testament” on the basis of newly discovered manuscript material. Its autobiographical posing in Sita style hints at her agreement with the prince’s inclusion of Rama-devotional attitudes after he lost his throne. This is picked up by the inscription on her memorial. The location of her cenotaph close to his in Vrindaban perpetuates the story of their love beyond death. The literary exchange of the pair lived on in manuscript as well as in liturgical singing, as evidenced to this day by combined performance of their songs, though over time, the memory that she was the composer has become blurred. Chronicles document the court’s choice to remember the devout stepmother queen, and the exiled prince, rather than the concubine. Some of her songs made it in a court-sanctioned lithograph edition of the prince’s devotional output, but only as a coda. By the end of the nineteenth century Kishangarh’s inspirational muse herself had practically fallen silent. The amnesia of her authorship endured, even as her features were immortalized.

This chapter explores the politics of world music through an analysis of konpa and zouk. The first section provides overviews of both genres, carefully emphasising their creole beginnings. The second section focuses on how globalisation and ‘world music’ marketing have individually and collectively impacted on the two genres over the years.