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| Bruno Mars performs with Cardi B during the Grammy's. |
SO THERE! Bruno Mars, an all-American singer, who is part Filipino, Puerto Rican and Hasidic Jew, was named Best male R&B/Pop artist at the 2018 BET awards Sunday (June 24). Beyonce easily won the female counterpart of the award.
As the only non-African American winner Sunday, the win validates Mars as one of the best R&B entertainers in the world today.
Let's hope this puts an end to accusations of "cultural appropriation" that at its most intense earlier this year bordered on racism against the Hawaii-born artist. Even Mars' multicultural background was used against him.
"Bruno Mars 100% is a cultural appropriator. He is not black, at all, and he plays up his racial ambiguity to cross genres," said Seren Sensei, a writer and activist who tackles African-American issues in the web series “The Grapevine.”
Let's get this straight. Mars grew up in the 90s listening to R&B artists and he's never denied those influences. He said he cannot help but be influenced by R&B artists like Boyz II Men, Dr. Dre, Diddy, Aaliyah, Babyface, Whitney Houston, and TLC, to pop stars like Michael Jackson.
And he's made a point of repeatedly crediting those artists who came before him. In an interview with Latina magazine, Mars said: “When you say ‘black music,’ understand that you are talking about rock, jazz, R&B, reggae, funk, doo-wop, hip-hop, and Motown. Black people created it all. Being Puerto Rican, even salsa music stems back to the Motherland. So, in my world, black music means everything. It’s what gives America its swag.”
When the accusations of being a "culture vulture" started up after Mars swept the Grammy Awards earlier this year, R&B legend Charlie Wilson came to Mars' defense. The Filipino American entertainer helps "bring back that classic New Jack / R&B sound to the masses when it was left for dead years ago and hard for artists to get that sound back on mainstream radar," said Wilson.
The venerable Stevie Wonder had a one-word response to the debate over Mars. He called the whole controversy, "Bullshit!"
"God created music for everyone to enjoy, so we cannot limit ourselves by people's fears and insecurities. He's a great talent," Wonder went on to explain to TMZ. "That other stuff is just bullshit."
Early in his career, agents tried to convince Mars to limit himself to Latino songs, even though his musical influences were much wider. If we limited artists to perform based on their ethnic heritage, Mars could very well have been stuck forever singing "Tiny Bubbles" in some Waikiki bar, or "Dahil Sa Iyo at countless Filipino weddings.
The whole debate of cultural appropriation can lead to a swamp of accusations. Is soprano Kiri Te Kanawa, a Maori, singing an Italian song for an opera that takes place in Spain cultural appropriation?
Is Paul Robeson singing "Old Man River," written by a white man for a black character, cultural appropriation?
Is Eminem, a white rap artist, ripping Donald Trump, waving his arms and strutting around the stage like a Baptist preacher, stealing an art form made popular by African/Americans?
When African/American ballet dancer Misty Copeland performs in Swan Lake, a European art form and European storyline, is that culturally correct?
And the examples go on and on, up to and including Nicky Minaj using Asian costumes and symbols when she performs her new single "Chun-Li," which was inspired by the long-running character from the video game series, "Street Fighter," which is in itself a cultural mishmash of a Chinese character created by a Japanese game maker.
At the height of his career, Mars has become an easy target. He was not the first to be influenced by black artists -- can you say Elvis? How about Buddy Holly, the Rolling Stones or any rock-n-roller -- nor will he be the last. That's how much we -- as Americans -- are indebted to African American culture, which in itself are extensions of the cultures from Africa.
During the height of the debate over Mars success, Black Lives Matter activist and writer Shaun King tweeted: "I just want to be practical here. Are people saying that Bruno Mars shouldn't sing? Or that when he sings he needs to somehow whiten that s--- up and sound more like Rod Stewart … I'm dead serious. What type of music is this man ‘allowed’ to do?"
"It’s about burning an artist you don’t like at the stake under the guise of faux intellectualism. White privilege is real, and so is cultural appropriation, writes music critic Stereo Williams in Billboard. "But when you ignore how much an artist has said about his influences; how much said artist clearly loves and reveres both what he does and who inspired him to do it; when that artist has composed/produced for black artists and made sure to introduce non-black audiences to his faves by shouting out Teddy Riley, Babyface and Jam & Lewis during his Grammys acceptance speech; you’re manufacturing a villain for your own agenda."
Mars success and the music he loves to perform has opened the door to other R&B artists whose art form has been essentially forgotten by the onslaught of hip-hop and rap on the airwaves and iTunes.
"Fortunately, Bruno (Mars) made it easy for us to be ourselves again," said Babyface, who said he was "humbled and honored" to be mentioned by Mars during his Grammy Award acceptance speeches.
"I'm very proud of him and his accomplishments," Babyface says. "I had the opportunity to go into the studio and work with and write with him, and I had so much respect for his work ethic 'cause it was very close to how I did it, and how I do it. I think he's genius in his approach and one of the best entertainers we've had in a very, very long time. I consider Bruno in the same category with Prince and with Michael Jackson; He's one of those guys who can actually stand with those artists, and there aren't a lot of artists I can actually say that about and say it with confidence and feel like he would deserve to be on that same stage as them."
Enuf said!
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Last March, following Mars’s grand-slam win at the 2018 Grammys, the American singer-songwriter received criticism on social media for allegedly using traditionally and historically African-American genres like soul, funk, R&B, hip-hop and reggae, although he is not really an African-American.
Mars's mother was Filipina immigrant Bernadette San Pedro Bayot, while his father is Jewish-Puerto Rican Peter Hernandez.
"Bruno Mars 100% is a cultural appropriator. He is not black, at all, and he plays up his racial ambiguity to cross genres," said Seren Sensei, a writer and activist who tackles African-American issues in the web series “The Grapevine.”
“What Bruno Mars does, is he takes pre-existing work and he just completely, word-for-word recreates it, extrapolates it… He does not create it, he does not improve upon it, he does not make it better. He's a karaoke singer, he's a wedding singer, he's the person you hire to do Michael Jackson and Prince covers. Yet Bruno Mars has an Album of the Year Grammy and Prince never won an Album of the Year Grammy,” Sensei has been quoted by CNN as saying further.
African American artists, nonetheless, came to Mars’s defense.
Mars, according to R&B singer Charlie Wilson, helps "bring back that classic New Jack / R&B sound to the masses when it was left for dead years ago and hard for artists to get that sound back on mainstream radar."
Wilson is among the singers Mars has been alleged of copying.
“Keep making that funky ish, @BrunoMars!!!! Do you always love," tweeted Grammy-nominated rapper Rapsody.
Meanwhile, “Black Lives Matter" activist and writer Shaun King tweeted: "I just want to be practical here. Are people saying that Bruno Mars shouldn't sing? Or that when he sings he needs to somehow whiten that s--- up and sound more like Rod Stewart… I'm dead serious. What type of music is this man ‘allowed’ to do?"
Mars, in a February 2017 interview with Latina magazine, said that his music is a tribute to the African Americans who inspired him to become an artist.
"When you say 'black music,' understand that you are talking about rock, jazz, R&B, reggae, funk, doo-wop, hip-hop and Motown… Black people created it all,” he enthused.
“Being Puerto Rican, even salsa music stems back to the Motherland (Africa). So, in my world, black music means everything. It's what gives America its swag.”
As a child raised in the '90s, he said he cannot help but be influenced by R&B artists like Boyz II Men, Dr. Dre, Diddy, Aaliyah, Babyface, Whitney Houston, and TLC, to pop stars like Michael Jackson.
In 2015, to prevent ticket reselling that happened during the week of Mars’s Super Bowl halftime show, Hawaii passed the “Bruno Mars Act.”
At the Grammys 2018, Mars became the second musician to win Song and Record of the Year awards with two varying songs from the same album, “24K Magic.”
As of 2018, Ed Sheeran and Mars are reportedly the world’s only artists with two songs at the Billboard Hot 100’s top 10 for at least half a year.
Read more at https://www.philstar.com/entertainment/2018/06/25/1827803/fil-am-bruno-mars-wins-2018-bet-awards#qy7RKVgielj0I2i9.99
STEVIE WONDER called attempts to besmirch Bruno Mars with accusations of cultural appropriation is "Bullshit."
There! I hope that editorial proclamation from one of musicdom's living legends settles that debate.
Mars has been under fire after winning six Grammys at the award show last month.
But I suspect that won't satisfied Mars' critics. Cultural appropriation in Mars' case is a complicated issue. Actually, I've been waiting for those accusations to break out ever since the Filipino/Puerto Rican, who was raised in Hawaii, broke out into the nationa music scene several years ago.
It appears his Mars winning six Grammy', including Album of the Year with his 24K Magic album, was the tipping point for some people.
For the past several weeks, Twitter was all abuzz about how Mars musical success using the musical genres based on African/American musical styles was because he was not black.
In the ensuing debate, Mars was called a karaloke performer who stole rhythm and blues, do-wop to win six Grammy Awards this year, including Best Album, and in the categories that have traditionally and historically rooted in Black culture -- best album, song and performance in rhythm and blues.
"Bruno Mars 100% is a cultural appropriator. He is not black, at all, and he plays up his racial ambiguity to cross genres," writer and activist Seren Sensei said in a clip for "The Grapevine," a web series that explores African-American issues.
"What Bruno Mars does, is he takes pre-existing work and he just completely, word-for-word recreates it, extrapolates it," she added. "He does not create it, he does not improve upon it, he does not make it better. He's a karaoke singer, he's a wedding singer, he's the person you hire to do Michael Jackson and Prince covers. Yet Bruno Mars has an Album of the Year Grammy and Prince never won an Album of the Year Grammy."
Part of my hesitancy of delving into this current subject is the potential that the debate to muddle the growing relationship and necessary coordination to achieve our common interests. Regular readers of this blog know that I have long advocated that the AAPI community acknowledge our debt to African/Americans in regards to the civil rights we enjoy today. I also advocate closer ties between communities of color in our fight to change the institutional mindset that reinforces the racist foundation that denies equal opportunities and employs unequal justice to people of color.
“When you say ‘black music,’ understand that you are talking about rock, jazz, R&B, reggae, funk, doo-wop, hip-hop, and Motown. Black people created it all. Being Puerto Rican, even salsa music stems back to the Motherland,” Mars said in an interview with Latina magazine. “So, in my world, black music means everything. It’s what gives America its swag.”
That doesn’t sound like someone who is trying to erase the origins of the music he creates. Rather, one who pays homage to it. The video for the remix to “Finesse” pays homage to “In Living Color” and opened a portal to that variety show that the younger generation may not have had before. It actually created awareness, and that’s more than what others have done before him.
Also, it’s not like Bruno Mars is just getting over because of his racial ambiguity. He’s a damn fine performer who, unlike many of today’s artists, has made sure that the stage presentation of his music is nothing short of exceptional.
If you don’t like Bruno Mars’ music, don’t listen to it. But that’s about as far as this should go. Leave the accusations of cultural appropriation at the door and be ready to apply them to someone who does openly steal from our culture. If we keep insisting on using these terms, they will ultimately lose value when they are needed most. Keep that in mind the next time you want to criticize and artist and not the system. - Andreas Hale, Revolt
Bruno Mars was a fixture atop Twitter’s trending topics this past week, and it wasn’t because of a new single or video. Mars, for what felt like the umpteenth time, was at the center of a raging debate about cultural appropriation, Black music and authenticity.
Mars has become one of the more polarizing artists in contemporary pop, ever since the singer-songwriter refashioned his shiny brand of pop into a retro-funk and new jack swing amalgamation, and especially since his 24K Magic LP took home album of the year at the 2018 Grammys in February. He’s become an artist that many flat-out love -- and that so many others just flat-out hate, for reasons that have little to do with his ability, or lack thereof.
The latest round of Bruno Hate was kicked off by a pointed but fairly innocuous Meshell Ndegeocello comment about the star. While promoting her upcoming covers album
Ventriloquism, the acclaimed singer/bassist
spoke to Billboard and offered this take on Mars’ sound:
“What he’s doing is karaoke, basically. With ‘Finesse,’ in particular, I think he was simply copying Bell Biv DeVoe. I think he was copying Babyface. And definitely there were some elements of Jimmy Jam & Terry Lewis back when they worked with Human League. I feel like there’s just all these threads running through there but not in a genuine way.”
When asked about the difference between “karaoke” and artistic interpretation, Ndegeocello clarified:
“It’s really a matter of musicality and being able to manipulate the tropes in a way that makes it feel personal... It can’t just be a pastiche, where you’re copying or mimicking an old sound or just doing karaoke. There has to be a form of sincerity.”
That’s been a common critique of Bruno Mars for the past few years -- that he’s a mimic. But that aspersion in and of itself isn’t all that damning; famed retro rocker Lenny Kravitz
was dismissed similarly 25 years ago by rock critics that thought he was aping Hendrix, the Beatles, Prince and Sly Stone without bringing anything original to the proceedings. And while evaluating someone for their “sincerity” and how “genuine” they are, from the outside looking in, is highly questionable -- there’s no reason to assume that Mars or anyone else is making music for cynical purposes -- what Ndegeocello said wasn’t exactly an indictment of Mars’ character.
But that was just the spark. Once the Internet’s cadre of Mars disparagers were made aware of the interview, it reignited the adjacent criticism that has long dogged Bruno Mars: that he’s a “culture vulture," an appropriator looking to gain fame and accolades by stealing from Black artists who have done such music far better than he ever could. Later in the week, a clip from an episode of the YouTube panel series The Grapevine, in which 30-year-old activist Seren Sensei slammed Mars for appropriation, went viral--leading to some cheers but mostly a whole lot of
criticism of Sensei's argument.
"Bruno Mars 100 percent is a cultural appropriator,” Sensei says in the video. “He is not Black, at all, and he plays up his racial ambiguity to cross genres.” She elaborates; saying that Michael Jackson would suffer today because of artists like Mars.
"I don't even think that Michael Jackson in this day and age would be able to get to the point that he got to previously,” she offers. “Because people have realized that they prefer their black music and their black culture from a non-black face… We have artists now that are much more willing to step into ‘Black genres’ who were not willing to--they didn’t want to do it, Black music was seen a certain type of way.”
Sensei’s take is ahistorical, in that she presupposes that appropriation is now more prevalent and prominent than ever. White folks making Black music is not a new phenomenon. At the height of Michael Jackson’s popularity, there were several white artists whose music was blatantly influenced by Black music and artists. Daryl Hall and John Oates shot to the top of the charts with a mix of soul and pop that was
more or less an MTV-era version of the sound coming out of Philadelphia in the ‘70s (a sound that most obviously influenced their own charting hits from that decade); much like Michael Jackson, Prince and Lionel Richie merged soul and pop in the 1980s. Madonna’s early hits were so R&B-flavored that singles like “Borderline” were played on Black radio, and some early fans initially didn’t know she was white. White rappers the Beastie Boys had the best-selling hip-hop album of the 1980s. In 1990, Vanilla Ice sold 10 million copies of
To The Extreme.
George Michael’s late ’80s solo breakthrough was particularly telling. Michael’s blockbuster Faith album was also promoted heavily on Black radio because most of his singles -- particularly “Father Figure” and “One More Try” -- were more or less R&B. Prior to his solo career, several of his hits with Wham! (“Careless Whisper,” “Everything She Wants”) had gotten similar treatment. Then in 1989, Faith won the Grammy for album of the year. He would also take best R&B artist (beating Michael Jackson and Bobby Brown) and favorite R&B album (beating Keith Sweat and Gladys Knight) at the 1989 American Music Awards. The latter victory prompted Knight to criticize Michael.
"The black male artist works very hard to get his due," Gladys Knight said in a 1990 interview, featured in Michael’s appearance on The South Bank Show that same year. " If [Bobby Brown] could compete in the same category George Michael competes in, that would be a whole 'nother thing."
The criticism of Michael at the time led to the singer taking a different musical approach with his second solo album, Listen Without Prejudice Vol. 1, in 1990. In Freedom, the posthumous Showtime documentary released in 2017, there is audio of Michael addressing the backlash. "I won these two awards that were traditionally received by Black artists, and I think there was a perception that it had gone too far," Michael said. "I see their point; I saw their point at the time. I just felt it was sad that white and black people recording together was dancing with the enemy.” Even Spike Lee and Public Enemy slammed the singer on the B-side of the group's landmark “Fight the Power” single. "I don't think there's any attempt to steal black heritage in what I'm doing," he stated in the 1990 South Bank Showfeature. "All I think is happening is I'm trying to make good music."
Michael’s words echoed those of similar white artists who’d preceded him. Elvis Presley talked about his love of black music in a 1957 interview with Jet magazine: “Rock ‘n’ roll was here a long time before I came along,” he said from the set of Jailhouse Rock. “Nobody can sing that kind of music like colored people. Let’s face it; I can’t sing it like Fats Domino can. I know that. But I always liked that kind of music.”
For generations, Elvis Presley has been vilified as an underhanded thief as opposed to an artist making the music that moved him. That vilification has led to people assuming the worst about him -- that he’s a racist who said he only wanted Black people to “shine my shoes,” that he literally stole “Hound Dog” from Big Mama Thornton in 1956 and supposedly only paid her $500 -- and it led to perception becoming reality. But the shoe-shining story is apocryphal, and Mama didn’t write “Hound Dog,” and thus wouldn’t have gotten money from Elvis covering it four years later. And right now Bruno Mars is being refashioned as a villain, because people don’t know how to address the inequality and racism in the music industry that supports him without assuming that an artist they consider vacuous is making music with bad intent.
But making music without feeling has never been the same as making music without integrity.
We’ve reached a tipping point in the “cultural appropriation” conversation. It’s become knee-jerk and lacks nuance. When a prominent writer implies that Charlie Wilson
is out of bounds for stepping in
to defend Mars, it begs the question: what are you fighting for? Because if this is about celebrating the originators of an artform, how do you justify being disrespectful to one of funk’s living legends?
It’s not about celebrating those legends. It’s not about preserving anything. It’s about burning an artist you don’t like at the stake under the guise of faux intellectualism. White privilege is real, and so is cultural appropriation; Bruno Mars’ mixed ethnic heritage (his mother is Filipino, his father Puerto Rican) certainly doesn’t mean he’s incapable of participating in the latter. But when you ignore how much an artist has said about his influences; how much said artist clearly loves and reveres both what he does and who inspired him to do it; when that artist
has composed/produced for black artists and made sure to introduce non-black audiences to his faves by shouting out Teddy Riley, Babyface (who
spoke enthusiastically with Billboard about Mars, post-Grammys), and Jam & Lewis during his Grammys acceptance speech; you’re manufacturing a villain for your own agenda.
His critics will point to the lawsuits against “Uptown Funk,” Mars’ inescapable 2014 hit with Mark Ronson, as evidence that he is a thief. But there has been no such backlash against producer/songwriter Pharrell Williams, who famously lost a suit filed by the estate of Marvin Gaye against him and Robin Thicke for their hit “Blurred Lines” in 2015. In the 1990s, pop icon Janet Jackson was forced to pay an undisclosed sum to singer-songwriter Des’ree for Jackson’s 1997 hit “Got Til It’s Gone,” which borrowed from Des’ree’s 1992 song “Feel So High.” Jay-Z, Drake, Kanye West, Destiny’s Child and countless other beloved artists have been on the receiving end of such suits and had to pay money or share credit.
Meanwhile, some non-Black artists who “sound Black” have proven easier to love because their success never eclipsed their Black contemporaries or their Black influences. Bobby Caldwell, Teena Marie, Jon B, Nikka Costa -- there’s never been a time when they were disproportionately elevated by the mainstream. But an Elvis Presley or a George Michael -- and now, a Bruno Mars -- becomes a flashpoint largely because they are given a platform that too often is denied Black artists. That’s true regardless of how you feel about their music. And that’s true regardless of how much they love the music they make. That’s why despising and defaming Mars personally is unnecessary, and misplaced. There’s no evidence that his intentions aren’t pure; only that the industry is biased towards him.
So you don’t happen to like the music he makes. Which is fine. If you don’t like the sound, it stands to reason that wouldn’t change if he sold ten albums. But it doesn’t mean he’s the bad guy. If anything, it just means he makes bad music -- to you.
