Is cultural appropriation ever okay?

Is cultural appropriation ever okay?

When is cultural appropriation — the act of making art that reaches for new ideas across lines of race and class — ever acceptable in pop music? Finding an answer requires us to clarify the difference between theft and influence, or more specifically, taking and making.

When Justin Timberlake beatboxes, or Taylor Swift raps, or Miley Cyrus twerks to a trap beat, it feels like taking. Nothing is being invented other than a superficial juxtaposition. On the flip side, when the Talking Heads echo African pop rhythms, or the Wu-Tang Clan channels the spirituality of kung-fu cinema, or Beyoncé writes a country song, it feels more like making. The borrowed elements become an essential, integrated part of a new, previously unheard thing.

White rappers are by far the most flagrant appropriators on today’s pop charts, and many of them flunk these questions. Yet, scores of mediocre white rappers — from Iggy Azalea to G-Eazy to Post Malone to Bhad Bhabie — continue to climb far higher in the marketplace than they would if they were black. This falls on the audience and the industry. For these artists, it’s not that their whiteness automatically makes them bad rappers; it’s that their whiteness automatically sets them up to become successful rappers.