What do you say to people that go on and on about cultural appropriation of "black music"...

What do you say to people that go on and on about cultural appropriation of "black music"? I can't have a normal conversation about music with my friend without him going on and on about how I shouldn't listen to Elvis, The Rolling Stones, etc. because it was all "stolen" music. Is rock music even as deeply rooted in black culture as people make it out to be? Why should it matter so much anyway?

Rock music is deeply rooted in black culture, but that shouldn't matter. Your friend is retarded

You disregard them like the worthless insects they are. Anyone who cries about cultural appropriation isn't worth talking to on a serious level.

Guess what: different non-warring cultures in the same area will naturally accumulate traits of one another due merely to increased contact.

Cultural appropriation has got to be the stupidest fucking thing. Imagine if cultures didnt share things with each other because MUH RACISM. Stop eating pizza and sushi if you aren't white or asian

>white rock musicians take influence from black blues musicians and take the genre in new directions
WTF THAT'S CULTURUAL APPROPRIATION SO RACIST UGH
>black hip-hop musicians take parts of recorded songs by white people and talk over them
No comment

It's pretty ridiculous. The only credibility I can see in this argument is how it's linked to white musicians popularizing genres made by people of color. But even then it all evened out over the years and artists of color got the credit they deserved.

Led Zepplin LITERALLY did steal from several black blues artists and did not credit them. Most notably on their debut album, many of the lyrics are lifted/altered blues lyrics from then unknown blues artists, along with some riffs even full on songs are covers more or less.

Ignore you're friend, music should not be owned by a single race that's really kind of disgusting. Culture belong to certain ethnicities and should be respected, music is part of culture, but I feel like it's more universal and should be shared between all people.

Haha, I dont know, I dont have any retarded friends.

I realize that he's being ridiculous but what am I even supposed to say to him? In my opinion rock music has undergone so many changes since it's inception that it's become unrecognizable from shit like Little Richard and original blues music, so who cares

Is your friend white or black, actually kind of important

he's a white liberal guy. Even if he was black though, does that really add credibility to his claims?

blite

Tell him how you actually feel. Youre right, he's wrong. You dont need friends who are morons.

He is right. Elvis,The Rolling Stones, etc. are unoriginal hacks. That doesn't mean their music sucks its just means that they are unoriginal.

If he's black you have absolutely no chance of convincing him. Best to just change subjects when he brings it up or whatever. If its unavoidable and it really does make you that uncomfortable then you might as well just stop hanging out with him

But both of those artists wrote incredible music within their respective genres, how does that make them hacks? If a new style of music came out and then someone did it (arguably) better, does that make them a hack?

You shouldn't say anything
You should destroy their computer and/or tablet/ and/or smartphone and tell them that all liberal arts academics are full of shit, know nothing, and only contribute slightly more to society than your average NEET
also tell them that the internet is an echo chamber and that they are not strong enough to resist it

All music was appropriated from cavemen banging sticks and rocks together. That's the only music we should be listening to.

Since he's white tell him to stop listening to music all together since black people love to claim they created music. Tell him he's appropriating their culture by listening to music. Watch the cognitive dissonance grow in his head

Nig nogs can bitch about cultural appropriation when they stop stealing music written by people with talent, distorting it to shit, rapping over it, putting it on SoundCloud and claiming it as their own.

>the rolling stones
>unoriginal hacks
lol

All art is appropriation. That's literally what artists do. They take their influences and build upon them.

Tell him that delta blues singers "appropriated" their rhythms from African tribal music (which by then was not their own culture) and then combined that with the melodic structure they "appropriated" from the folk music of certain European immigrants to create blues music.

If you want to talk about white singers in the 50's getting more attention than the black singers that preceded them, then fine, but that's not cultural appropriation. That's just racism. You can't "steal" a larger artistic movement from a culture because no culture can own an artistic movement.

Yes the rock music of the 60's and 70's was HEAVILY rooted in blues music played by primarily black musicians, but by that time most of those artists were building on it in a substantial way. You can hear the blues in The Rolling Stones, but you cannot find and old blues song that actually sounds like The Rolling Stones. Complaining about them is especially stupid because they constantly paid reverence to their influences and played a huge role in deliberately bringing them to an audience that would have never heard them. And I don't even like The Rolling Stones.

Also, ask him who his favorite pre-war blues artist is. The people who say dumb reductive shit like that tend have never even listened to the music they're supposedly championing.