Black kids are listening to hip hop. This might be the folk music that they can relate to. The stuff that is written about in Mudcat doesn't seem to reach beyond a certain demographic.

I think that you have to be able to relate personally to music for it to be interesting to you. Most of the discussions about music on Mudcat are oriented to a certain frame of reference by consensus. This doesn't seem to fit with the interest of black people that I know.

Also, there is a movement today to separate black culture from others. The American black culture is not a racial thing, necessarilly but it is a cultural entity. It doesn't exist in Africa or in other countries such as the Australian Outback. It's to be expected that our heroes look very much like us or how we would idealize ourselves. If there were more discussions on black musicians there would be probably more interest on the part of black people.

Mudcat talks about pop music occasionally and it's effect on folk music. Most of the references are about white pop "folk" music, not black. An interesting thread would be about Tricia Rose's book "Black Noise". A discussion about the folk influences there would prompt some interest in black participation I would think.

Frank