Race has been central to the discourse of popular music: to its performance, reception and, indeed, to the ways that popular music and its genres have been thought about. This is most obvious in the US where the distinction between ‘black’ and ‘white’ music is generally acknowledged. As we shall see, this distinction closely relates to the problematic position of African Americans within the American nation-state. The nation-state, as will be discussed, legitimated itself in terms of an homogeneous population. Nation-states that had large populations of people identified as different who it was accepted were exceptions. This means that African Americans have always posed a very particular problem for the American nation-state. However, race has been a key element in the formation of popular music everywhere. This is because, as we shall see, race has been a fundamental element in identity construction throughout the modern world and popular music is nothing if not modern. In this chapter I will discuss the history of the idea of race, its connections with the state and with popular music as a part of national cultures. For reasons of space I will mainly focus on the Anglophone world. I will discuss race and popular music in the US and in Britain, and I will also have something to say about the ways that American black music has been utilised in countries with British colonial histories, such as South Africa and Australia. Refereed/Peer-reviewed