White Artists in Black Artforms
Note: italicized quotation comes from the You Don’t See Into the Blues Like Me Summer 2001.
“This disjunction or lack of evident fit between what we might call the latent content of the blues (slavery and discrimination) and its manifest content (love troubles and whiskey) would be the grounds for monumental miscomprehension at the hands of new white fans and players.”
Should we feel troubled when a white rapper is praised for revolutionizing the music industry? Or when a white singer is pictured on the cover of Blues Review? Does “race” even matter in the first place? Regarding those art forms that are rooted in African American culture, should we feel any different when a white artist is highlighted than when a Black artist is? It is highly likely that many people will not see any issue with either of the above cases. Particularly those who prefer to think of themselves as “colorblind” will praise music critics for not taking race into account. After all, how can we favor artists of any race if we claim to be anti-racist?
Paul Garon’s stance on this issue may at first appear as a double “standard”. In regards to the blues, he shows clear distaste for the praise of white performers and holds many Black artists in high regard. He quotes lyrics from a multitude of Black artists, praising them for their poetic creativity, and criticizes “ ‘white blues’ artists in fedoras and sunglasses”. Does this mean Garon is just racist towards white people? Or is there something more to be uncovered here?
The main idea here is the history of how the blues came about: “The Blues finds its inspiration in the material aspects of working-class African American life in the United States” (Garon). This means that the Blues is an art form that comes from a very specific group of people with a unique experience. This experience is shared and understood by a specific social group, and it is impossible for someone outside of that group to obtain a complete understanding of that experience. As Garon eloquently states, “The Blues was stirred in a ferment of discrimination, oppression, and even murder and mass terror, but what emerged was a powerful poetry filtered through the processes of fantasy and imagination, fanned by desire, and finely elaborated by the creative process.”
He goes on to explain how the lyrical interpretation of the Blues can differ between those who share similar experiences with the artist and those who are merely projecting their very different experiences onto the piece. It is important to distinguish the “latent” and the “manifest” content of a work of art. While the lyrics in Blues songs are manifested, according to Garon, as “love troubles and whiskey”, the art is rooted in a long history of racial discrimination. Of course there are many people of multiple social classes, ethnicities, and backgrounds that can relate to the manifest content of the Blues, but it is specifically the working-class, Black American that can connect with the latent content.
All this to say, Garon is not claiming that those who cannot relate to the latent should never sing the blues. His primary concern is when music critics and those with power in the industry ignore the artist’s experiences entirely when choosing whom to feature, publicize, and what to pay. It is important to take these concerns into consideration when addressing any art form that is specific to a particular people group. When praising and critiquing a work of art, a critic must consider the roots of the art form as a whole and how these roots inspire the artist.