I want to talk about appropriation in music a little bit this week.

Music grows from the blending of all types of sounds. Music is all about experimenting and trying new things. Some music is made for the masses while other music is made for self-fulfillment. Writing music is all about expressing one’s self, telling stories, and living a full life. It sounds so easy. One we think of music, our first thought is usually love, happiness, entertainment, dancing, and general goodness.

We don’t usually think of music as being offensive, but, historically, it has been. There has been a lot of appropriating in the history of music. It is common for the white man to take the music of a black man and label it their own. White men are also known for copying the ideas of black genres like jazz, gospel, and rap music. A lot of popular music from the 1900’s was written by minorities, but was made popular by white people. Even in modern music, there are white artists taking over rap.

I don’t think that cultural appropriation is a good thing in most aspects of culture, but looking back at the history of popular music, I wonder if appropriation is what causes the growth of music. Music genres grow from one another. There is blending of instruments and vocal timbres and rhythms that all come together to create a whole new song. Without the blues, we might not have some of the country music that we had today that lead to some areas of rock and alternative music that led to new kinds of techno music that feature rap artists. Popular music is wonderful in the sense that it is for everyone, no matter what genre it is. You turn on the radio and you here one song after the other a black man, a white woman, a Latina man, a black woman. There are things wrong in pop music, but representation is not one of them. I listen to a popular radio station and I hear the America.

All within these genres, we see all types of people; black, white, and every shade in between. Is music appropriation really appropriation or do all artist and genres exist as spices in a musical kitchen. We add some rap to this, some jazz, to that, some white to this, and some black to that, and we create something delicious.

Jazz. It’s a black man’s genre. But, that didn’t stop Harry Connick Jr. from playing the piano.

Broadway. Musical theater. It’s a white man’s genre. But, appropriation did not stop a Latino man from breaking into Broadway hand and hand with people of all races shouting raps about our immigrant accentors; our founding fathers. Lin-Manuel Miranda created Hamilton and now Broadway will never be the same.

Are we going to let walls build up and stop us from copying, borrowing, and creating new music, new sounds, and new genres?

Music is art. Let me borrow your brush and someone else’s paint and I could be the next Van Gogh.