Cultural appropriation has been prominent in the music industry for decades now. Many prominent white musicians have been accused of borrowing aspects of African American culture (AAC) in order to make a profit off what people of colour were once punished for doing (Johnson, 2015). Some of the most celebrated musicians in the industry have been accused in the past for borrowing fashion, music and art forms of different cultural groups without acknowledging their origins. Among these musicians are Miley Cyrus and Iggy Azalea, who have both in the past received huge backlash for appropriating African American culture in a blatantly inappropriate manner.
Miley Cyrus
Long gone from her Disney channel days, in June 2013 Cyrus released a single entitled ‘We can’t stop’. The song earnt headlines everywhere for its allusion to drug use and the premiere of Cyrus’ new ‘urban’ look, but what really got many ethnic audiences talking was Miley’s blatant and disrespectful cultural appropriation in the song (Nittle, 2019). In her music video, Miley sported a gold-plated grill while twerking, both of which are seen as aspects of African American rap culture. Throughout the video, she also uses hand gestures, clothing and location to try and emulate AAC. It was later even revealed by Cyrus’ producer that Cyrus wanted her song to “feel black”. Coming as no surprise from this, Cyrus received mass criticism for trying to advance her career through cultural appropriation.
“Miley straight-up appropriates the accoutrements associated with certain black people on the fringes of society.” – Dodai Stewart (2013)
In particular, many were unhappy with the star because she tried to ‘rebrand’ herself using AAC. Utilising symbols from that culture in order to charade as a member of a minority group, to thus attract attention for herself.
Iggy Azalea
Unlike Cyrus, Iggy Azalea has been using AAC to advance in her career from the beginning. Azalea is arguably one of the most controversial rappers of today when it comes to cultural appropriation. The Australian born rapper has no connection with the African American culture and yet her entire career is built on the foundation of African American people. Azalea has been called out time and time again for her apparent “blaccent”, in reference to the notably appropriated accent that Azalea uses to perform which is clearly not her own (Guo, 2016). Linguists Maeve Eberhardt and Kara Freeman found when looking at Azalea’s entire discography that the rapper was extremely fluent in “African American English”. Shaped by segregation and slavery African American English has deep roots in African American history and the use of it by someone who is not African American is considered culturally inappropriate. Of course, through the rise of hip hop and television parts of African American English have become a part of many peoples vocabulary. But Azalea has taken on all aspects of African American English in order to exploit it for her own profit and refusing to acknowledge and pay homage to where it comes from.
“If you’re mad about it and you’re a black person, then start a rap career and give it a go too. I’m still going to make the same type of music and still be ridiculous and larger than life. So I can’t be that f****** sorry about it.” – Iggy Azalea on her Blaccent (2019)
It’s clear that Azalea shows no signs of slowing down when it comes to her cultural ignorance but her behaviour continues to lose her the respect of her once fans around the world (Wolfe, 2019).
Resources:
Guo, J. 2016. How Iggy Azalea Mastered her Blaccent. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/01/04/how-a-white-australian-rapper-mastered-her-blaccent/ [30 August 2019]
Johnston, M. 2015. What’s Wrong with Cultural Appropriation? These 9 Answers Reveal Its Harm. https://everydayfeminism.com/2015/06/cultural-appropriation-wrong/ [31 August 2019]
Nittle, N. 2019. Cultural Appropriation in Music: From Madonna to Miley Cyrus. https://www.thoughtco.com/cultural-appropriation-in-music-2834650 [31 August 2019]
Ortiz, J. 2019. Iggy Azalea Is Ready for Her Comeback. Are You?.https://www.cosmopolitan.com/entertainment/music/a28485080/iggy-azalea-cover-story-in-my-defense-not-sorry/ [1 September 2019]
Stewart, D. 2013. On Miley Cyrus, Ratchet Culture and Accessorizing With Black People. https://jezebel.com/on-miley-cyrus-ratchet-culture-and-accessorizing-with-514381016 [30 August 2019]
Wolfe, J.2019. Iggy Azalea Defends Controversial New Album Cover, Says It’s a ‘Statement About Women’.https://www.cheatsheet.com/entertainment/iggy-azalea-defends-controversial-new-album-cover-says-its-a-statement-about-women.html/ [1 September 2019]
Alicia McFadden 
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