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I went into this article expecting a review of the music in the collection and its influence on stateside Brit-music lovers--you know, as described in the teaser. Instead, I found an op-ed piece that basically brands an entire genre with an incendiary charge.
If the musicians are racist, and their music is inherently racist, I guess the audience is racist, too--Reynolds suggests as much with his comments about magazine-reader behavior.
As a small-town teen in the 80s in northeast England, I listened to the rap songs that made the Top 40. But Grandmaster Flash's "White Lines," while great to dance to, didn't resonate with me the way The Smith's "Panic" did. To quote that song, it said "nothing to me about my life." Does that make me racist?
The dangerous thing about claims of racism is that they're difficult to disprove; any evidence to the contrary can seem weak or insufficient. It's the same (though obviously much worse) as someone suggesting, say, that certain music journalists are pretentious gits. How does one prove one's innocence?
I assume Reynold's book about hip-hop discusses the socio-political meaning behind the lack of British Indie influence on the genre. Only seems fair.
