White riot

Punk rock and the politics of race

Edited by Stephen Duncombe, and Maxwell Tremblay, with a Foreword by James Spooner,

Verso Books, 336 pages, paperback, £14.99

From the Clash to Los Crudos, skinheads to afro-punks, the punk rock movement has been obsessed by race. And yet the connections have never been traced in a comprehensive way.

White Riot is the definitive study of the subject, collecting first-person writing, lyrics, letters to zines, and analyses of punk history from across the globe.

This book brings together writing from leading critics such as Greil Marcus and Dick Hebdige along with Mimi Nguyen’s 1998 essay, It’s (not) a white world: looking for race in punk. It also includes personal reflections from punk pioneers such as Jimmy Pursey, frontman of Sham 69, Darryl Jenifer, bassist of Bad Brains, and reports on punk scenes from Toronto to Jakarta.

According to Jeff Chang, author of Can’t stop won’t stop: a history of the hip-hop generation: “White Riot — this loud, brilliant collection of rants and critical explosions on race, music, and rebellion—has a radical message that goes far beyond punk.”

Order this book from Bookmarks online at www.bookmarksbookshop.co.uk and get a 10% discount by quoting LRDOFFER.