Azizi, blacks in the US ended up in places around the country without any say in the matter. So wherever you go in the US, I guess you're likely to find a reasonable size black population.

In the UK, blacks and Asians *chose* to come over. And as immigrants do, they tended to congregate in cities, which was (and is) where the work is. There's precious few jobs available in rural areas for the people born there, never mind jobs going spare for immigrants, so there was never any reason for immigrants to move into those areas. They'd also tend to clump together like most immigrants, partly for community and partly because their lower incomes/savings/education forced them to live in the less pleasant areas of town. This is pretty much the story of any group of immigrants starting up in a new country, I guess - check the various Chinatowns, Greektowns or whatever.

Integration has meant this isn't as much the case as it was, and moving to where the jobs are means that well-educated black Britons are likely to live anywhere. But there are still inner-city areas of Britain which are 80-90% non-white (areas of London, Manchester, Leeds and Bradford) and areas which are almost exclusively white (mainly rural areas: Lincolnshire is less than 2% non-white, and Fylde, where I come from, isn't much higher).

As for Huey's original question: most likely it's either because they don't know the music or don't like it. Just because folk has absorbed elements of black music, it doesn't mean that black people are more likely to be into folk music.

You'll find plenty of white kids at hip-hop and R&B gigs these days - it's fashionable. But how's about something that isn't so fashionable? How many white *or* black kids would you find at a bhangra gig, for example? Consider the debt that bhangra owes to black hip-hop and rap, and to white rock, pop and electronica - but it's unlikely that blacks or whites would make it there, because the music form (and often language) is outside their cultural experience and tastes.

Graham.