Merina:

Azizi's original post asked for comments on the influence of Black people on British folk music. We can always get into the horse discussion- any music is folk music if you stretch the meaning far enough- but you point out yourself (though I don't think you meant to) that Black and Asian folk music have contributed as much as beardy fat beer swilling middle-aged little-Englanders to the ghettoisation of ALL varieties of folk by simply ignoring the existence of other sorts. We could be PC and say British Asians are British so Asian folk music in this country is British folk music, but it's not very useful when you fudge things like this- all you can say is that Black and Asian influenced abolished what was left of the indigenous music. Doesn't sound too good, does it?