In their introduction of "Music and the Racial Imagination," co-editors Ronald Radano and Philip Bohlman assert that although music is "saturated with racial stuff", "musicology--in its historical, structural-analytical, and ethnographic expressions--has sought to deny the racial dimension." Much as the author agrees with them, he also thinks that racism or racial discrimination is a sensitive topic in which many scholars in the field of musicology or ethnomusicology are reticent to engage. As an African musicologist and music educator, the author is especially interested in the two essays featuring the continent of Africa namely, D.A. Masolo's study of popular music in Kenya and Thomas Turino's paper on race, class and musical nationalism in Zimbabwe. However, he has elected to focus on a single chapter from "Music and the Racial Imagination," D.A. Masolo"s "Presencing the Past and Remembering the Present: Social Features of Popular Music in Kenya," in light of his experience with several of the socio-musicological issues Masolo discusses which have relevance not only in Kenya but other African countries as well. In this essay, the author deals with two issues raised by Masolo, which are often debated by scholars in the fields of musicology/ethnomusicology and music education. They are: (1) the use of contentious terms or terminologies by scholars with regard to the categorization or description of types of music, philosophy, religion, arts and so forth; and (2) the influence of colonialism on music and cultural education at the formal scholastic level in Africa. (Contains 1 note.)