The Controversy Between African Americans and Music Genre

(Inspiration: Beyonce's AOTY win at the Grammy's last month)

Disclaimer: this post is too explore the history between our culture and the music genre.

Due to Beyonce’s controversial Grammy win last month, many country music fans are disappointed in the fact that a African-American woman had won outside of her genre. Due to the win, it had sparked conversations about black artists in country music and music as a whole. Throughout history, black artists had created a wide range of genres, from jazz, rap, blues, soul, gospel, rock, funk, country, house music and much more. But, somehow genres like rock and country are seen as traditionally white, due to the fact that people forget the genre’s roots and where it came from.

When black artists go into these certain genres that are seen as predominantly “white”, they're either called a ‘sellout’ or “not black”, even “whitewashed”. For example, in the 1980s when Whitney Houston came out with her debut album, she had a pop-soul sound. Many people used to call her “Whitey” for her sound and her vocals wasn’t ‘soulful’ enough. Many were calling Prince whitewashed for his fusion of genres. And let’s not forget the biggest of them all, Micheal Jackson. He was called whitewashed for going into the pop music space. He was also called whitewashed due to his vitiligo (but that’s another story). And many more artists including Diana Ross (I think), were called whitewashed or not black enough.

Another topic I would discuss is racism and cultural appropriation. Throughout history, some white artists have taken the genres of black music without properly recognizing the roots of the genre they're doing or even, stealing songs that originated from black artists. Speaking of recognition, many black artists have been underpaid, disadvantaged and at times even not allowed to play at certain venues or arenas.

Segregation and discrimination also has some controversy with this where certain records were marketed towards either black audiences or white audiences, due to the fact that many people thought certain genres were white without recognizing the true origins of the genre. Calling the black records ‘race records’ and white records ‘hillbilly records’.

Stereotyping also has some history within this, with people only limiting black artists to a certain image or genre. For example, hip-hop is a genre normally stereotyped as homophobic, violent, aggressive and sometimes too hypersexualized. Even R&B has been stereotyped when it comes to gender roles. In R&B, female artists have an expectation to conform to a diva image or are often hypersexualized. Male artists have an expectation to be hyper masculine or dominant personas, even romantic ones.

But throughout the years, there has been a growing diverse representation in black mainstream music with more black artists doing more genres then expected. From neo-soul to afrobeats, reggae to rock, even country (due to Miss Horse Lady) have been a diversity in black music.

And due to Beyonce’s historical Cowboy Carter album and Grammy win (she won AOTY and Best Country Album), there has been a growing representation for African-Americans in country and Americana music. Beyonce went to the origins of country music and created her own authentic version of country. While many say Cowboy Carter wasn’t real country, it was a fusion of other genres within the country music space. Since Cowboy Carter’s influence on music, she had brought unrecognized black country music stars (such as Tanner Adell and Britney Spencer) to the mainstream.

To end with this conservation, we should know that black music has made a significant impact on people's lives worldwide. We should know the history within the music genres and we should celebrate the diversity of black music.