It’s not really my place to posit upon racial issues – at least often. What is interesting, however, is how racially divided music is.

The topic recently occurred to me after I talked with my other half. I suddenly realised that most musical genres she’s averse to are stereotypically associated with black culture. It surprised me even more to notice this isn’t even an unusual stance. Rap, hiphop, reggae, dub, jazz – these are seemingly reviled by the upstanding middle class of British society. We prefer our music to ROCK! Even though rock ‘n’ roll has its roots in black culture: Fats Domino, Chuck Berry, et cetera, such traces have all but disappeared. When modern – famous – guitar bands have black members, it’s an oddity. I can name a few off the top of my head, but the fact I have to think about it makes me nervous. What happened?

I’m sure you could write an entire PhD thesis on this, and still get nowhere. It still worries me. Because there’s so much great, innovative music out there across all genres, yet so many people I know hate so much of it. I don’t – for a second – think this is racially motivated. At least for most people. It definitely seems like a cultural divide, with people of different colours and backgrounds being brought up with different genres of music, which tend to polarise with generation. And it seems to get worse. It’s because of this that rap artists like Professor Elemental are so funny: they play on our cultural expectations of genres. When we’re confronted with rap, we expect aggressive, young american black men – not a middle-aged English professor.