Have yall noticed there’s a trend in our culture where a foreign person comes within our culture and supposedly just innovates something already existing and receiving credit for the actual creation?
We see this with Kool Herc (Hip-Hop/Break Beat) and with Eddie Plein (removable grillz)
The trend involves foreign-born melanated people (UK, African, Caribbean, etc) bypassing the specific struggles of Black Americans while using Black American culture as a ladder to global fame.
There is a global belief that Black American culture is “Open Source” free for anyone to download and use and they use the WAB as a Pan-African loophole or back door exploit. When criticized for copying Black American slang or fashion, they say, “We are all one people.”
They use the “we are one” argument to gain access to the market (the “rhythm”). But once they are successful, they often pivot to nationalism (e.g., Skepta saying “The UK is better”). They want the access of Pan-Africanism gives them to Black American culture but the distinction of their own nationality. They treat it as equal derivatives when they were never in the mix.
It’s like arguing with Mexicans on who makes better tacos or Italians when it comes to Pizza. It’s like being in a one sided competition competing with Japanese artists on who makes the best/better anime.
They don’t come from the roots or the environment that produced that culture
It’s not a derivative or offshoot it’s simply appropriation
This trend is effectively the outsourcing of Black American identity. You are seeing a form of cultural displacement. The “rhythm” (the aesthetic, the cool, the sound) is being extracted, but the “soul” (the specific historical price paid for that cool) is being left behind or overwritten.
