It’s unfortunate, Mr. Calloway, because you actually don’t tell lies in this article but the way it’s structured can only provoke the kind of responses you’re getting. And that’s on…everyone I guess. You’re referring to an absolutely true phenomenon that white America has historically and in many ways continues to prefer to consume black art when it’s repackaged in a white container. You can see it today even with black artists (though this really is changing thankfully)- just watch the SNL skit “the day Beyoncé turned black”. White America will only accept a certain hard to define amount of blackness into the mainstream. It’s not revolutionary to say that the country is bad at looking at itself.
What is difficult with this article is the structure- your point is ambiguous and obscured. Keith Richards is a dick?Check. I don’t have to tell you that Black America is not a monolith- some people like them, some people don’t, sample opinions in the comment section. You start to come for the Stones but then acknowledge everything they did right or forgivably, while broadening the landscape to the whole sociological situation which they could never be fully responsible for. Every successful artist benefits from the situation they live in- if they didn’t suit it in some way then they’d have never made it in their time. Kid Cudi is having something of a Renaissance- while he was popular, his debut was not exactly in the golden age of emotionally sincere, gender norm defying, vulnerable hip hop. Now he’s looked on with even greater appreciation. That situation has little to do with race but it’s one of a million examples.
Adele is miles more popular than the thousands of soulful crooners that paved the way. I worked on a concert with Lisa Phillips once, a touring singer with the Stones for over ten years. She did Merry’s parts. She could sing any top 40 singer out of the water and was the sweetest lady ever to boot. Some forgettable band was asked to sing a duet with her and they made a face, as in, why should we sing with a nobody? It’s a travesty.
The title got me to click (good job) after I audibly groaned that you were going to reveal some horrible thing. Next time just explain that you’re making a commentary on this landscape without switching your villain over and over. The responses here are hyperbolic but you really shouldn’t be surprised, the Internet has never been a garden of nuance.
