Cultural appropriation in music - what's acceptable?

[Midas]

just want to clarify i do think cultural appropriation is a legitimate thing and if it's able to be weaponised to stop people from saying "y'all" i'm all for it.

[Sebastian Cobb]

Does Leigh-Anne say owt about Jesy blackfishing? I can't imagine she's too happy about that.

I think it predates that, although it's a decent documentary it's a shame they didn't include more from Jade, in the segment they had together she seemed really lucid (more than Leigh-Anne, who was on a 'voyage of discovery' I guess, or that's the way the documentary was presented) and had a lot to say about growing up as 'an arab' in Tyne and Wear and then moving to London and being considered white/white passing.

[flotemysost]

Yeah I thought it was a decent documentary. FWIW, I always used to assume Jesy Nelson must have had mixed Black heritage - some people do just have naturally "ambiguous" features, which is hardly their fault of course, but I guess it gets into potentially dodgy territory when they're clearly being styled in a way that references a culture associated with another ethnic group.

I think people have been especially bothered by Ariana Grande's so-called blackfishing not only because of her penchant for Ronseal-tier fake tan in recent years but also various lyrics and interviews referring to things associated with Black and Latinx cultures. But then, someone like Bruno Mars, who is admittedly of mixed minority ethnic heritage but isn't Black, could be said to have based his whole career on Black culture and AFAIK hasn't received many accusations of appropriation.

I guess "classic" Rn'B styled pop is widely seen to have crossed over into "belongs to everyone now" territory through decades of proximity to whiteness, rightly or wrongly, whereas more hip-hop and rap influenced music is probably still seen largely as "black music". I dunno, I'm just rambling now really but it's interesting how these things are perceived.

Of course the QI-klaxon example is Ed Sheeran winning a MOBO, surely.

[Sebastian Cobb]

UK Hip Hop is kind of weird on that front as there's a major North/South divide and the further north you head the whiter it becomes. I wouldn't say anyone's taking the piss and everyone's clearly quite passionate about what they do. I think it's always been different enough from US Hip Hop and quite small scale, as far as I know nobody's ever kicked off about it.

On the MOBO thing, something that really surprised me recently was someone on twitter pointing out there aren't any dance music categories in the awards, which is mad given how things like House, Garage and DnB came around. Imagine not being able to give Carl Cox a lifetime achievement award?