I have a friend in Vermont who is part of an amateur drum circle that meets weekly. Their leader is a talented multi-instrumentalist who once took a trip to Jamaica to learn some new rhythms. She brought back what she learned and taught it to her drum circle students.
This group also played at the weekly farmer’s market in St. Johnsbury. When they dared to play some Jamaican music at the market one day, a black resident of St. J. complained to the market management about this horrendous crime of “cultural appropriation.” How dare these white people play music composed by black people! The management responded by forbidding the drum circle from ever playing at the farmer’s market again. Justice was served.
Of course, I’m being sarcastic. It’s pretty clear from the way the “cultural appropriation” weapon is applied to music that the idea is inherently racist. We know this is true because the weapon never seems to be applied to non-white musicians.. The “cultural” part of the idea is a lie; what’s really going on is racism, i.e. segregation based on skin color.
In other words, “cultural appropriation”, if applied consistently in the world of music, would return us to a world of segregation where black people play black music over here, and white people play white music over there.
Below are just two examples of non-white people playing music of white people — to make it even worse, this is music by DWEMs (Dead White European Males). If “cultural appropriation” were to be applied to these musicians, they’d be told to go back to playing only music from their native cultures.
Imagine, if you will, telling Awadagin Pratt that he shouldn’t play Chopin. (This particular piece is special to me; I’ve been working on it for a couple of years, and Pratt’s playing of the trilly recap is too beautiful for words.)
Or imagine, if you will, telling Yuja Wang that she shouldn’t play Prokofiev.
Heck, if we were to take the “cultural” part seriously, even a white guy like me shouldn’t be allowed to play Chopin because I’m not Polish.
And what are we to make of this collaboration between Oscar Peterson and Andre Previn? Who’s appropriating whose culture here? It’s enough to make one’s head explode.
And food makes this even more obvious, if that's possible. It's cultural appreciation, not appropriation, which should be celebrated.
If they want cultural appropriation to go away then natives and blacks can’t wear levis and makeup and have their hair done at a salon or play rock music or live in houses or drive cars or or or. They want to preserve and live their heritage, do it all the way.