Recently, a colleague in the Department of Chinese studies approached me regarding a Ph. D. dissertation on contemporary Chinese rock he had to read. The dissertation defined American rock music as the results of various processes of métissage and hybridization. This surprised him for he had always considered American popular music as a homogenized whole, the reflection of a global, hegemonic Anglo-Saxon culture, and the product of a consolidated, far-reaching industry. His reaction confirms the paradox of American culture identified by Denis Lacorne, i.e., a remarkably homogeneous image when seen from afar, but from the inside, a much more fragmented reality, a culture "that has not forgotten its 'pluribus 1 '". Indeed, American popular music, from jazz, or blues, to soul, rock, or country, boasts complex, culturally diverse roots, connected to specific historical and geographical contexts, and linked with distinct communities, defined by age, ethnic origins, social backgrounds, or gender. It belongs, along with most American popular art, to a multicultural environment stoked by the triple refusal of Anglo-Saxon hegemony, assimilation, and republican universalism, a perfect example of the "salad bowl" theory. However, as Denis Lacorne adds, one of the problems with the "salad bowl" theory is that there is no theory of the bowl itself 2. Thus, if the various components of American popular music can fairly easily be traced and identified, how should we consider the final products and the industry that packages and markets them? How should we assess the hybridizing processes that give birth to the songs and dances? What about the economic, political, ideological superstructures that shapes them? In fine, to return to the initial question of my colleague, what is American popular music?