Blinken Launches Global Music Diplomacy Initiative, Plays Guitar

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken Wednesday night launched the Global Music Diplomacy Initiative, a worldwide effort to elevate music as a diplomatic tool to promote peace and democracy and support Washington's broader foreign policy goals, TURAN's U.S. correspondent reports. 

"You all know – we all know – music is a way for all of us to show who we are, where we come from, what we love, and also to learn the same about other people.  That’s true of people.  It’s also true of countries," Blinken told the audience attended by senior administration officials, members of Congress, music industry icons, leaders from the arts and humanities, and alumni from the State Department’s music diplomacy exchanges. 

"In the United States, our nation’s history shows up in the very instruments that we have – the drum set, invented in the early 1900s in large part by African Americans, who fused together instruments that generations of immigrants had brought to this country: tom-toms from China, cymbals from Türkiye, bass drums from Europe," the Secretary sad.

The lifelong music fan turned top U.S. diplomat then took on the guitar at the event and said: "Now, I have to admit... I had some ambitions to try to make it in the music business once upon a time.  And indeed, some of my once and – who knows – maybe future bandmates are here tonight – Dave McKenna, Link Bloomfield. But it turns out – it turns out I was missing just one crucial skill: talent."

After performances by the likes of jazz icon Herbie Hancock, Dave Grohl of Nirvana and Foo Fighters fame, and others, Blinken took the stage himself, joking that he was sure to "clear the floor" and offered a rendition of "Hoochie Coochie Man" by blues legend Muddy Waters.

The Global Music Diplomacy Initiative aims to leverage public-private partnerships to create a music ecosystem that expands economic equity and the creative economy, ensures societal opportunity and inclusion, and increases access to education.

"It will build on current public diplomacy music programs to create public-private partnerships with American companies and non-profits to use music to meet the moment, convey American leadership globally, and create connections with people worldwide," the State Department said.

At the event, Blinken also announced the American Music Mentorship Program, the Fulbright-Kennedy Center Visiting Scholar Award in Arts and Science, and efforts to bring American music and lyrics into classrooms across the world as part of the country's investment in English-language learning worldwide.

Alex Raufoglu