Week 9 - Are blackness and whiteness useful concepts in the study of popular music?

Differentiating between 'white' and 'black' types of music when studying popular music can be helpful in finding out the origins, values and situations the music came from. For example, rhythm and blues originated from black people who used it to express their sorrow and distress during their time of slavery. Certain races use a certain style, structure, set of instruments etc to create music that have been passed on through their generations and/or created concerning social/economical/political issues of their time, so certain music will always be stereotyped to a race because of its influence. However, in today's technological world, where people can sample music from all over the world, styles of music are commonly mixed and influence one another. Therefore, making it hard to class as 'white' or 'black'. Also there are many types of music that originate say from Asia, which would fit neither into the black or white category. Today's world is such an integrated, multi-cultural one that race is not even classified so much anymore. For example, we see white artist's like Eminem producing extremely successful rap songs which is normally considered 'black' music. To really study the origins and influences of popular music, it would be better to look at other factors such as class and other social issues rather than just focusing on race. As John Tagg says; no definitions can be made from the distinction between white music and black music.