ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book outlines the ways in which music can cross racial faultlines. The relationship between race and music is complex and is made more so by the complexities in the discussion of race as a category. Ronald Radano and Philip V. Bohlman, in their thoughtful outline of the elision of race from musicology, assert that race lives in the house of music because music is so saturated with racial stuff'. Much of this book centres on Britain and the ways in which ska, rocksteady and reggae crossed and recrossed the cultural border of the racial divide. As Stuart Hall notes, the formation of the Black Diasporas in the period of post-war migration in the fifties and sixties has transformed English social, economic and political life'. The book tracks the changes in musical and lyrical expression against the oppressive circumstances of migrants and their descendants.
