The book features contributions by Eddy Grant, Osibisa, Russell Henderson, Dizzee Rascal and Trevor Nelson, with an introduction by Soul2Soul's Jazzie B.

Following Commonwealth immigration to the United Kingdom, the sounds and styles of black music became the foundation of the city's youth culture.

The book tells the story of music and the characters making it from "Soho jazz clubs to Brixton blues parties to King's Cross warehouse raves to the streets of Notting Hill".

In The Independent the book is praised as "not just a fine anthology but also social history" and described as "exceptional"[1] while in the New Statesman the work was described by Bim Adewunmi as "captivating and well crafted".

[2] In The Guardian Sukhdev Sandhu criticised the book for missing some subjects, however praised it as "major achievement nonetheless",[3] while Karl Dallas wrote in The Morning Star that the work was "meticulously researched and illustrated' and an "authentic account of black music's capital origins".