A Brief History of the Erasure of Hip-Hop, Rock N Roll and Black Music Through Anti-Blackness
This is a response to an Anonymous comment. I’m glad to see other black people noticing that we are losing Hip Hop music and culture to non-black people just like we did with Rock & Roll. For those who don’t know, when black people started Rock & Roll, white people did everything they can to block it’s radio play and success to ruin black artists and the music genre as a whole. They used to also categorize the music as negative and uncivilized, sounds familiar doesn’t it? That’s what plenty of them say about Hip Hop as well. The thing is, deep down a lot of white people enjoyed the music and it actually played a part in the civil rights movement because black people along with some white people were rallying for it to play on the radio and for the concerts to not be racially segregated (See Ray Charles, James Brown). But here’s some other deep things to know about it: 1) As a way to appease white listeners who wanted to hear Rock & Roll on the radio, music companies would use white singers to sing over the original songs by black artists and that would be the version played on the radio (See Little Richard’s Tutti Frutti, + his thoughts on Pat Boone doing it over w/ success). 2) Black artists had no say over white people doing over their songs. 3) White artists got paid way more than these black artists, even when most of them played a key role in writing and producing their own music. 4) This led to white artists getting the acclaim, praise, attention and credit for a genre that wasn’t even there’s. Keep in mind that Elvis Presley is regarded as “The King of Rock N Roll” when he himself was inspired by black music/artists and plenty before him made the genre what is today. All of this led to black people losing Rock & Roll and many white people will claim older white rockers as the “innovators and pioneers” of a genre created by black people. Many today also don’t know it was created by black people (Which says A LOT). But over time black artists themselves gave up on the genre which is just sad; they allowed white artists to knock them out under the guise of “it’s just music”. This is why Jimi Hendrix got the praise he did, because he was literally one of the last black rockers and made such an impact in a short mainstream career that lasted for only 4 years. Well today the same is happening with Hip-Hop. Too many black people are welcoming non-black people with open arms to a genre that has been inspired by our pain and struggle. Today many non-black people have no problem stripping and re-telling the history of Hip Hop, and they do it by stripping it’s blackness. (See Ben Baller, See “We Real Cool?: On Hip Hop, Asian-Americans, Black Folks, and Appropriation” By Kenyon Farrow c.2004) <— a piece of this was reblogged here btw*. Also never forget how when Eminem stepped on the scene, white people went out of their way to claim Eminem as “the Greatest Rapper Alive” even when a lot of them didn’t even care to listen to the majority of rappers, whom are black, simply because they are black. They also like to claim we only rap about sex, drugs and violence (to discredit us) when many non-black rappers do the same (See anti-black K-Pop/K-Hip Hop fans :) … The reason why this is so important to me and SHOULD be important to ALL of us who are BLACK (even if you don’t like Hip Hop) is for the fact that everything we do, own, and create is never respected. Everything we have never belong to us, and white people AND non-black POC have no problem reiterating that to us. Everything we create is hit with “It’s for everyone.” Our culture has become a universal grab all. That’s why the appropriation of black culture is treated as a joke while appropriation of other cultures is taken much more seriously. To make matters worse, these are the same people who hate us and do all they can to maintain a false sense of superiority over black people all while taking from us. It’s to push this idea that Non-black people can do everything we do and “better”… With that being said other groups are starting to claim they either “Created”, “Innovated” or “Pioneered” Hip Hop & Rap. (See Ben Baller, again). It’s at the point where I feel like they can actually go and claim such ignorance because many will co-sign the erasure of black peoples’ creations… Including cooning ass black people.. For the love of God I wish they wouldn’t speak. For example, I Saw a Greek dude on YT try to claim Greeks created rap… Got in an argument with a Mexican dude who tried to claim that Mexicans did rap before black people and we “stole” the credit because we speak English… Got into an argument with an Asian dude over black appropriation, our naturally kinky or “nappy” hair and the N word… I am begging my fellow black people to wake up! I am a 21 year old woman who loves my culture and blackness and I REFUSE to allow this nonsense! Stop begging for the acceptance of non-black people by way of erasing your own! Know your history, don’t allow them to rewrite it for you.
