Cultural appropriation is what America was built on. Embrace it.
It was also based on stealing land from and slaughtering Native Americans. Yay?
No one complained when Hooty and the Blowfish "appropriated" what many would consider white music.
1) "Hootie"
2)
Terrible example. The frat-boy quasi-folk rock that Hootie played was, in fact, largely appropriated from black music decades earlier -- early R&B, "race records," blues, early folk and so forth. Darius Rucker, the lead singer (and only black member of the band), often faced racism during that phase of his career.
3) Rucker turned to country music, another bastion of white musicians -- whose origins are a direct result of appropriation linked to racism. Blacks were subject to intense segregation in the 20s, and whites who liked "hillbilly music" and blues played mostly (though not exclusively) by blacks knew a good thing when they heard it. Similar to rock in the 50s, they took the music and ran with it. Granted, they didn't have much choice; mixed-race bands were not an option. Anyway, with access to broader markets and better radio exposure, they were more successful, and a new genre was born.
While Rucker is a very successful country musician, and no mainstream publication would dare call him out on race, not everyone is quite so color-blind. He still routinely faces racism, though he rarely reacts to or comments on it.
That kind of treatment and expectation -- "why is that black musician playing
our music?" -- has happened over and over in rock and pop history (Hendrix, Living Colour, HR, Prince, Michael Jackson, etc), and is at least in part a consequence of process of appropriation. Domination of rock by whites was so thorough that it didn't make sense for black musicians to play what was historically black music.
Good art is good art regardless of who's making it or what supposed race they're labeled.
Okay, but... what is the criteria here for "good art?"
Is Eric Clapton's cover of "Cross Road Blues" good or bad? What makes it good or bad? Does it get better or worse when he performs it with a reggae feel? Is it better than the original?
What's happening in the Cream versions? I for one don't get anything like the feel of the original; I can't imagine Clapton in 1968, in the middle of the Delta, at his wit's end, begging God for mercy. Is Clapton paying homage to a man he openly recognized as a great blues musician and composer? Is he sharing a great song with the audience? Is he signaling a deep knowledge of the blues? Is the band using it as a platform to display their chops? Is it all of the above?
We can make a good case that Al Jolson is a great singer. Should we ignore his history of performing in blackface?
Can we ignore it?
Could Adele do a great cover of "Living In the City"? She's a great singer, it's a great song, race shouldn't matter, right?
Ultimately, I don't see how we can take race/ethnicity or appropriation completely out of the picture, without distorting the history of music.
Oh, and btw, Bruno Mars is darker than me, and I'm a black guy. If anyone has the right to incorporate "black music" it's the guy that's as dark as many so-called black people.
Mars isn't black. He's 1/2 Filipino, 1/4 Puerto Rican, 1/4 Jewish. He grew up in Hawaii.
What's the criteria for inclusion? Is it that he's a minority? Is it merely the color of his skin? Is it based on acceptance by black musicians? Does it depend on how much discrimination he faced? How much
has he faced? I don't know, do you?
And what do you say to someone else who is black, who
doesn't think he earned that right? That is how this thread got started, after all.
He's talented, he works very hard, and like I said: I don't necessarily agree with the idea that he acted inappropriately. Rather, my point is that the topic is
stunningly complex, and as a result I can fully understand why someone would be upset over his music.