Dangerous crossroads

by George Lipsitz

In cities around the globe, immigrant populations are finding their identity by making music which combines their own experiences with the forms of the mainstream culture they have come to inhabit. Dangerous Crossroads surveys an extraordinary range of these musical fusions: Puerto Rican Bugalu in New York; Algerian rai in Paris; Chicano punk in Los Angeles; Indigenous rock in Australia; chanson Quebecois in Montreal; swamp pop in Houston and New Orleans; reggae, bhangra, and juju in London; and zouk, rap, and jazz in Europe, Africa, and the Americas. Throughout, Lipsitz highlights the issues that unite inter-ethnic music fusions across geographic boundaries. He demonstrates that what might be interpreted as a postmodern process of meaningless juxtapositions of musical forms ripped from their original contexts may actually be a redeployment of traditional music to serve untraditional purposes. Lipsitz explores the ways in which ethnic difference in popular music enables musicians from