And isn't it geist?

but what's good for the giest is good for the gander, i suppose.

First of all, yes you could define 'meta-music' as music made from previously existing music (or in a broader sense sound made from
previously existing sound). But sounds that are programmed on a
computer or a drum machine are not 'previously' existing anymore than someone who hits a drum. Which would mean that 'programmed' types of electronic music (such as techno, electro e.g. Cybotron etc) are certainly 'music', and the people making them *are* musicians. They are, specifically, electronic musicians. Being
an electronic musician takes a different skill set, but it's still being
a musician. Also, hiphop *has* turned out 'musicians'. Anyone who
can manipulate a turntable to the point of it being a true collage instrument (i.e. a turntablist) is a 'musician', working with texture, rhythm, tempo and even melody, even if DJs who merely beatmix tracks aren't.

And as for Public Enemy starting 'meta-music', that's just absurd.
The idea of 'sampling' goes back in theory to the Futurists and Dadaists and John Cage, and in practice to the musique concrétists of the 50s and 60s. Pierre Schaffer, Iannis Xenaiks, Varése pieces played through speakers in public. All sorts of people used sampling before Public Enemy - think of Tackhead, Paul's Hardcastle, Negativland, John Oswald, Christian Marclay, Steve Reich's "It's Gonna Rain" and "Different Trains" etc. How about anyone who used a Fairlight or an Ensoniq Mirage or even a Boss sampler footpedal in the 80s - from Art of Noise to innumerable new wave bands, from Laurie Anderson to Frank Zappa, they all used a machine that recombined pre-existing sounds. Same thing with any art-rock band that played a Mellotron in the 70s. Any pop band that used pre-recorded tapes and manipulated them in the 60s. Including the Beatles.

And as far as where you think the 'geist' leaps to, just to give you one example, between 1997 and 2006, what happened? Among other things, IDM and glitch. Some of the most developed movements involving what you term 'meta-music', because that's when laptop capabilities kicked in. And then nothing about mashups? What? An artist like Girl Talk is possibly the ultimate metamusic expression. Yet you leave all of these completely out. You try to extract the meta-music meme as something surgically cut and dry. But it's not. It's been interwoven into the fabric of both recorded and performed music for the past 50 years!!!

Step into the music library of a quality college radio station for a change.

MT
P.S. I write for an alternative newsweekly too.