In our recent discussions of authenticity and cultural appropriation, especially regarding music, we’ve explored how musical elements from various cultures or subcultures might be appropriated for the sake of commercialized record deals. Musical and rhythmic elements, especially from hip-hop, have been used by artists such as Iggy Azalea and Justin Timberlake to sell records, without paying homage to the history in which the music is rooted.
We talk about things being appropriated into white culture, or “whited out”, which is all too real. But let’s take a moment to discuss what happens when artists in a particular culture heavily incorporate elements of other, more Westernized music into their own for the sake of reaching a wider audience. This dilutes their own traditions and threatens a continued legacy of “authentic” music from that culture.streaming How to Be Single movie
Don’t Blame Drake: Modern Dancehall Is Built on Appropriation
Artists like Sean Paul speak to this point when it comes to Jamaica specifically. “It is a sore point when people like Drake or Bieber or other artists come and do dancehall-orientated music but don’t credit where dancehall came from and they don’t necessarily understand it,” said Paul. “I know artists back in Jamaica that don’t like Major Lazer because they think they do the same thing that Drake and Kanye did—they take and take and don’t credit,” he adds.
But what’s to be said about the fact that these musical traditions such as dancehall are quickly being diluted by artists like Sean Paul turning around and allowing their music to be so strongly influenced by a more globalized/Westernized form of music? Aside from the issue of authenticity or strategic inauthenticity, it seems to be an issue of preserving culture. How do we create a music scene where cultural traditions can retain relevance in a globalized world of music?
