Fashion
Firstly, the fashion sense of black musicians before Fishbone was not so...cool, i think. But Fishbone's style was aparently defferent from any black musicians. It might come from the influence of Ska culture. Especially the sense of Angello, Chris, and Kendall for example, were significant, and other members' sense were also cool. i don't know much about fashion, so i don't know well about fashion brands, but Angello's suit for example was far from the 70's soul musicians' fashion, far from Hip-Hop fashion, it was so cool. i love their sense of fashion.

Mixture
And of course, the mixture of many kinds of music style. At their first period, ska, punk elements seemed to come to the fore as we could listen in the first album, but when we listen to second, third album, we can see the funk groove in their music laying down behind ska, punk sound in fact. i gradually thought the base of their music, is funk. There are many tunes that obviously show the influence from P-Funk and this can't be said direct influence of P-Funk, but "Bonin' In The Boneyard" from "Truth and Soul" is very FUNKY tune. i really love this tune. One of the most fascinating elements of Fishbone is they are prominent in terms of punk expressions on the other hand. i like the sequence in some albums which is like, after the slow ballade suddenly rush into the fast punk tune. Anyway, we can't find any band like Fishbone who brings many kinds of music, such as reggae, soul, R&B, jazz, hardcore punk,ska,etc... together and makes them "Fishbone music" as a result.

Black Music
Needless to mention to punk, rock elements, they, on the other hand, are also talented in terms of traditional black music as well. It's rarely mentioned but their chorus work is very beautiful. Even when they play heavy-metalic tune, the tune might contain very beautiful chorus work(look at "Fight The Youth" for instance)... Very interesting style of them just like playing punk-rock while keeping on standing on the point of soul, R&B, is supposed to be their most fascinating part. Imagine Stevie Wonder suddenly starts to play punk rock one day. That's the impression i have on Fishbone's music. When i think about heavy-metalic, hardcore, funk music played by white artists, they tend to sound monotone and make me tired somehow. it might be a prejudice though. Fishbone's music is not monotone and always makes my mind fertile.

Social Problems, Political Problems
From the first album, Fishbone has been keeping their attitude towards social, political problems. While they accuse about poverty, drug problems progressively, they also reveal their critics and sarcasms toward selfish politicians, powers, wars, mas media frequently. As they say by themselves, this attitude causes the band low sale records. They might got more chance for getting high sale if they were just singing no controversy, but i believe they will never stop singing controversy, and they must be proud of them being "controversial" band.

Blues
i remember Angelo once said the music which Fishbone was creating was a contemporary "Blues" basically. Blues...it seems to have nothing to do with the music of Fishbone directly, but considering the fact that Blues was the music that black people have been singing about the poverty, the discrimination, and the desperate conditions of their surroundings, the music Fishbone is creating could be said to be the contemporary Blues in a spiritual sense.

Being Positive
i feel, especially when i experience their live show, they are really positive. In their early era, they emphasized "P.M.A." which means "Positive Mental Attitude." Even when they swear at the reality around them which is really heavy and unreasonable, they never stop being positive. You can see that attitude from their records of course, but i strongly think you will be able to feel that in their show! Nevertheless it's messy and crazy which many audiences repeating dive, the show is very positive and warm. You haven't experienced yet? What are you doing? Go and feel it NOW!(mine-D)