The history of music in the 20th and increasingly in the 21st century has to a great extent been shaped by the cultural dynamic of creolization, a process by which elements of distinct cultures are blended together to create a new culture. This cultural dynamic has destabilized and continues to destabilize cherished binary oppositions deemed essential to the formation of individual and collective identity formation such as high – low, Western – non-Western, own – foreign, and Black – white. Focusing on Bernd Alois Zimmermann’s involvement with African American music and Alvin Singletons’ engagement with the concept of mestizaje this talk elucidates the wider ramifications of the process of creolization for the field of new music.