Five things white people should know about cultural appropriation

[BumRushDaShow]

63. Very true description

Particularly to the argument of "imitation" and "flattery".

You can have an Andre Watts magnificently reproduce a Liszt piano concerto (written by the famous Hungarian composer of standard 19th century European orchestral music), yet he does not claim it as his own (despite him being 1/2 Hungarian and 1/2 African American).

Alternately, you can have a Stan Getz (a white jazz performer played often in my household and I still have a bunch of his records that my Dad owned) who adopted a sax style right alongside with his black contemporaries, including Horace Silver and many others. He just did his thing and did it well -not to co-op it but as a contributor to it.

We used to call it "crossover" but I think what has happened is that in a cutthroat industry eager to expand sales, there has been a lot of rejiggering going on to manufacture a re-engineered "Miley Cyrus" (who apparently ran from her own father's music) in order to bring in more $$$$.

As a side note for blues - when you have one of the modern epitome of blues guitar - Bruce Springsteen and of the blues keyboards - Bruce Hornsby, and some of the younger folks not realizing what they are hearing, you know they did not set out to "claim" as their own, but to use as a means for expression.