Overland travel in Senegal and Gambia is the best introduction to local music. Blaring out from every market stall, taxi radio-cassette and record shop in every town along the trans-Gambian highway, is the music of Youssou N'Dour, Baaba Maal, Ismael Lo, Super Diamono, Toure Kunda or some kora player. The smells of perfumed incense and smoked fish mingle with the rich inflections of Youssou's voice. You stop to buy a piece of tie-dye cloth, or maybe you are waiting at Farafenni to catch the ferry across the river. ‘I like his music too much,’ says a Gambian standing next to you, listening to Youssou's latest cassette, Kocc Barma. ‘I like the tama (drum) with keyboards, it makes me want to dance.’ ‘That's deep Wolof,’ says another; ‘He's singing for Alla Seck who died, Ndyesan (alas).’ The nearby stall-owner disagrees. ‘I prefer his old tapes, like Tabaski,’ he says. ‘That was sayisayi (rascal) music, that was real Wolof music, now he's too toubab (European). Now I listen to Baaba Maal.’ A fourth person joins in. ‘Baaba only sings for his own people, the Tukulor: he doesn't care about anyone else.’

I have recently found myself reacting with some irritation on meeting such terms as ‘black music’, ‘white music’, ‘Afro-American music’ and ‘European music’. The aim of this letter, written mainly with white European or North American students, friends and colleagues in mind, is to question the validity of these terms, to bring some issues lurking behind their general usage out into the scribal daylight and, hopefully, to provide some ideas for a constructive debate on music, race and ideology.