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

It is difficult to decide whether music can be considered ‘black’ or ‘white’ as there are many factors to be taken into account. However the concepts of blackness and whiteness are useful to some degree when studying popular music as they allow people to identify where the music is from or where it originated. There are many songs that will be made up from both black and white influences just as there are many that have been written by a white person and performed by a black artist and vice versa. For example Marvin Gaye singing a song written by John Lennon. This further blends the boundaries of what would be considered black or white music. Their will always be stereotypes e.g. most people will say reggae is predominantly black music but you have to remember that stereotypes are only social constructs so can change from one country to the next. I would say that although these are useful concepts they would only go as far as being a starting point as once you go any further it becomes very difficult to distinguish.