Here's a link to and excerpts from http://www.scotsman.com/entertainment/39We-all-have-to-defend.5638289.jp


We all have to defend the culture we love'

Date: 11 September 2009
By Sue Wilson

"NO-ONE involved with the Scottish folk scene in recent years, or the broader Celtic music scene, can fail to have been struck by the international melting-pot of influences cross-breeding with traditional tunes and rhythms, spawning their vigorous hybrid offspring.

More latterly – and likewise largely in the hands of younger musicians – the same has been true of English folk music, a progression that reached a new apotheosis last year when the singer Jim Moray featured the British-Ghanaian grime rapper Bubbz oADVERTISEMENTn his version of the classic incest/murder ballad Lucy Wan. No less significantly, that track's parent album Low Culture, Moray's third, topped the hotly contested annual critics' poll in UK scene bible fRoots, indicating that approval of such experimentation had penetrated the folk establishment further than ever before.
Our traditional music doesn't have much of an urban history until relatively recently," he points out. "It's tended to be strongest in rural areas, on the geographical fringes, where there has always been much less integration with immigrant communities, so there is an inherent conservatism there."

Nevertheless, in his capacity as artistic director of Celtic Connections, Shaw has consciously sought to broaden the festival's cultural mix – in part for pragmatic reasons of keeping the programme fresh, but also with a view to making the event more inclusive. As well as appearances by major African artists such as Baaba Maal and Youssou N'Dour, a key event in this respect was 2007's Burns Mela, a Scottish/Asian Burns Night that was specifically targeted at Glasgow's largest ethnic minority community.
"It worked really well," Shaw says. "We got about a 50:50 mix of people coming along on the night, and ever since then I've had a lot more contacts from the Asian community suggesting ideas and artists for the festival, so it's definitely opened doors longer term, too."

In a similar vein was this year's Jamaican Burns Night, somewhat ironically commemorating that near-miss by the national bard, and very aptly featuring Edward II, one of the few contemporary British folk acts whose line-up includes both black and white musicians. Originally formed in Cheltenham in 1984, they won a large following for their fusion of traditional English and Celtic sounds with reggae and African music before disbanding in 1999, and are currently enjoying a year-long reunion to mark ten years since that split."