Can a diverse playlist help create world peace?

Listening to music from other cultures makes you value diversity more and seeing multicultural collaborations reduces prejudice, a study has found.

The findings suggest we shouldn't be playing the same old beats to ourselves over and over.

"Music in general has importance in society above and beyond just being a beautiful thing to listen to: it can change our attitudes about important things like diversity," Professor Jake Harwood, lead researcher from the University of Arizona, told Hack.

'We listen to stuff that sells'

The research has prompted calls for more culturally diverse music on the airwaves.

"Pretty much right across the board with commercial radio we listen to stuff that's been programmed by music directors or what sells, so a lot of the time we don't get exposure to music from other cultures," Sydney-based Papua New Guinean artist Ngaiire said.

If the right people in the right radio stations get behind promoting more cross-cultural music, the more people are going to get used to hearing it."

Ngaiire says it's also up to individuals to be open to more than what they're being fed through popular sources .

"At the end of the day we as individuals can listen to music and go 'that was amazing' but it comes down to what you do the next day."

Azmarino from Aussie hip hop crew Diafrix says there are challenges in getting more music from other countries on mainstream radio.

"Whether music industry and listeners are ready for that is another question," he said.

Jamming against racism

Ngaiire agrees a more culturally diverse set of beats could foster more tolerant attitudes.

"I have incredible hope for music to transcend those boundaries and I definitely believe wholeheartedly that it has the power to bring people together," she said.

Just how much music can be a bridge to cultural understand is something US researchers are planning to examine.

"One thing we're interested in is if exposure over a longer period of time leads to permanent changes in someone's attitudes about diversity," Professor Harwood said.

The team from University of Arizona has also found the simple act of watching two people from different cultures jam together reduces racial prejudice.

The experiment started with fake news stories. Researchers showed US participants one mock report that featured an American and an Arab playing music together, and another with the same individuals making an app together.

"When [viewers] saw the story of two musicians collaborating, they had more positive feelings about the Arab person in the story and Arabs in general than when they saw the virtually identical story, where the two individuals weren't making music," Professor Harwood told Hack.

He says intercultural music collaborations are quite powerful.

"They seem to change people's attitudes, so encouraging musicians to experiment and collaborate with people from other cultures is a great thing to do." 

The western music monopoly

There is a bigger and more intersting world of music out there than the stuff we've been force-fed, according to Stu Buchanan, the host of Double J's weekly program Fat Planet, which features tunes from across the globe.

He says Australia, the UK and North America accounts for just 6 per cent of the world's population, yet makes up a majority of our listening diet.

"But there is so much more to hear from the other 94 per cent of the world's population who are listening to music on a daily basis from artists [within their own countries], we just never hear or read about them, they're almost invisible to us," Mr Buchanan said.

He adds there are artists well known and loved in their countries - for example, 98 per cent of singles sold in Japan are from Japanese artists.

"I think there's a fear of investigating music from other places because we think it's not going to be good enough, it's going to be too different," he said.

"But you discover there's far more similarities than you might expect."

Mr Buchanan says it's inevitable that when you fall in love with a new artist, you are more exposed to their heritage.

"It forces me to think in different ways and have a different appreciation of culture more broadly," he said.

How should we teach music?

Professor Harwood says music education in a lot of places is under threat, despite evidence showing cross-cultural tunes can increase how much you value diversity, and multicultural music collaborations can reduce racial prejudice.

"It's viewed as the easy thing to cut. If your budget is being cut, you cut art before you cut maths.

Education about things like music can have a fundamental effect on society and on people's levels of tolerance.

"I'm a big fan of incorporating multicultural elements in [arts education]. I really think if kids are exposed young to the sort of value and the beautiful things other cultures can create it can have a lasting effect on them throughout their lives," he said.

'We're all in this together''

Professor Harwood, who is a musician himself, says music's ability to break down communication barriers has never been more important.

"When we've got a political climate - at least in the in the US - where issues of diversity are not valued and where other cultures are denigrated it makes it doubly important that we try and stand up against that where we can," he said.

He says the big picture is that music can make the world a more peaceful place.

"It helps us connect to people from different cultures, and it humanizes people from other cultures," he said.

"In a literal sense, it gives them culture, and we can't dehumanize people from other cultures when we see that they have culture and when we share that with them."

Azmarino from Diafrix says having different people from different cultures in the spotlight serves another important purpose.

"Young people can identify with them...and it brings them identity," he said.