ABSTRACT
Issues of ethnicity and cultural heritage are central to any realization of identity as a drummer. Some musicians of ethnic minorities in the UK are active in what has traditionally been seen as white people's music for commercial reasons, and perhaps because of a broader cultural hegemony engineered by the music industry. The favourite band of the Indian/South African violinist in the Broken Record Project is Led Zeppelin, four British white men. This violinist has by no means abandoned his cultural heritage. Perhaps nowhere is the commoditization of ethnic identity and evidence of white power more overt than in the music business. The data suggest a marked difference between the identities of adult drummers and the younger teenagers; adult drummers appeared to have a firmer sense of ethnic identity in relation to drumming. Several adult drummers expressed a strong sense of identity in relation to particular musical cultures.
