The other week I heard Miley Cyrus on a radio show. They were asking her what has been going on lately in her life and she told them that she’s focusing on her music for now. They then asked her about whether or not she was listening to any new rap music since, not too long ago, she a took a dive into the rap scene with some hits with producer Mike Will Made it. She said she liked Kendrick Lamar’s “Humble,” but other than that she tries to avoid rap music because not only was she tired of the materialistic concept of it, but also it was because she felt like it just “wasn’t her.” Whelp kids…today’s lesson are called “White appropriation.”
Okay, where do I even start with this? It would be one thing if Miley Cyrus was never into rap music to begin with and said this. I personally love rap, but hey, I get it. If you don’t like rap then you don’t like it. But this girl spent the last five years going around being a feature in rappers' videos making millions out of it and now she says this? Let’s not forget about how she was twerking and smoking weed in those videos as well. I still laugh when I hear people say Miley invented twerking as if black people haven’t been doing it for decades. The only difference is when blacks did it, it was seen as “ghetto,” but when Miley did it, it’s a damn trend. She says how she doesn’t really like “rap culture” anymore, yet she didn’t have a problem making millions off of it now did she? That’s the problem I have right there.
Look, I’m not even putting all the blame on Miley for this one either. Let’s face it, this has been something that has been going on for many years in the music industry. Hell, as much as we loved Elvis Presley, he was known to steal songs from black artists and make them worldwide hits. There are African American musicians who have been putting work in for years, but people don’t know who they are. While white artists go on, copy their style and make hit records. The reason why this happened was because a lot of music companies felt like if a song was made by a person of color, it wouldn’t attract a mainstream (white) audience, so that’s why they were never credited. Crazy right?
Here’s the way I look at the situation. There’s nothing wrong with being influenced by black artistry. Hell, the Rolling Stones said that they named their band after the black artist Muddy Waters. Justin Timberlake was influenced by artists such as Michael Jackson and Al Green. But you know what makes them different? They acknowledged them! They told people that they did it as a way of not only being humble, but also honoring the black artistry they were using. They didn’t do it as a trend and as soon as it got old throw it away like a used tissue. So, next time a white artist wants to disregard black culture remember what I said. Peace.
