National Geographic Music (National Geographic)

Saturday evening saw the final world music showcase, hosted by Global Rhythm magazine and featuring Malian kora master Boubacar Diabate, British fusionists Nikhil Korula Band, Congolese guitarist Shiko Mawatu and a repeat performance from Lobi Traore. But I was already on a plane home by then, my stamina depleted, my clothes stiff with beer, my carry on luggage filled with tacos and hot sauce and my mind reeling with the sheer volume of music I saw - and how much more I had missed.

Overall, I was impressed by the amount of world music available at SXSW – but I wasn't exactly bowled over by the quality of the acts or the presentation. While most of the acts were damn good, they were mostly baby bands and there was little top-tier talent. Smaller specialty events still seem to draw the biggest world music talent – Europe's WOMEX festival, New York's GlobalFest event and the U.K.'s long-running WOMAD festival remain the best bets to see the genre's top acts all in one place.

I also thought the showcases were a mixed blessing. They allowed audiences to see an evening's worth of world music acts in one place, but also effectively segregated them. Jacob Edgar of Cumbancha/Putumayo records elaborates on this theme. "I felt like world music was very much on the periphery at SXSW and that the genre was really ghettoized," he says. "The reality is, most people come to SXSW for rock, pop, singer/songwriters, etc, and by segregating world music into specific venues you pretty much guarantee that no one will discover anything by accident… I'd like to see more integration of world music into SXSW as well as more collaborations between world and rock/pop/folk artists."

To be fair, this is the fate of a lot of niche music at SXSW – getting segregated and lost in the shuffle – but I can't help but wonder how much of the segregation is self-inflicted? The world music community is a strange animal. It's really more of a hybrid of different constituencies and interest groups; an umbrella genre that encompasses everything from glossy African pop to Central Asian field recordings. It's easy to find fans interested in individual slices, but precious few are going to want to eat the whole pie.

Maybe the future of the genre lies in genre/bending crossover acts like Rupa and the April Fishes, whose rootless musical cosmopolitanism is accessible to everyone. Maybe it lies with international pop artists like Yael Naim (pictured), who can be claimed by both world music and larger pop audiences. Maybe adventurous indie rockers like Vampire Weekend will herald a new era of musical experimentation, where Western pop bands look to non-Western sources for inspiration, like many of the great post-punk bands of yore (I can dream, right?). As the music market continues to fragment and music sales continue to slump across the board, it seems obvious that this kind of creative cross-cultural fertilization would be good for everyone.

But if globalized hybrids are the future, where will that leave the traditional artists preserving their unique musical cultures in far-flung pockets of the world? Will these artists ever get a chance to play for a rock and roll crowd at SXSW? I kind of doubt it, but I'll probably check it out again next year anyway…