This chapter discusses the important processes and potential effects of the globalisation of Western culture, especially within the area of music. The advance of globalisation in the twenty-first century has led to an increasing distrust of its effects on nation-states, as well as a return to the notion of cultural imperialism, which it replaced. Music plays an important role in expressing a sense of place, yet it is argued by some cultural scholars that such ‘authentic’ local cultural production is being homogenised (if not completely erased) by the pervasive forces of globalisation. Following Ritzer’s concept of ‘McDonaldization’, local culture is subject to the logic of global capital, where culture becomes increasingly standardised and formulaic across regions and borders. However, the chapter challenges these ideas with reference to the global movement of hip-hop; it will be demonstrated that as such forms of music ‘travel’, the context and meanings can change as they are appropriated by different local groups of people. This process of appropriation has the potential to subvert such texts from the cultural industry into ‘glocalised’, hybrid texts of resistance which speak to local concerns and the continuance of authentic ‘folk cultural’ practice (for example, the use of hip-hop by Indigenous and marginalised young people in Australasia).