[Colleen32011]

I think it's partially a question of numbers - black people have invented pretty much every kind of cool popular music this century. Eventually some white people start listening to blues/jazz/soul/rocknroll/hip-hop, 'cause it's good, fresh, original, like nothing they've heard before. Eventually, if they like it enough, they want to play it - when Keith Richards met Mick Jagger, he started up a conversation with him 'cause he saw him carrying a buck of Muddy Waters records. Meanwhile, more and more white people are starting to find out about this cool new sound, whatever it may be at the time, and evetually, the population distribution of this country being what it is, there are at least as many or more white people who like it as black people. That's where racism starts to come into play, or did - 'cause those orginal white fans of black music have formed bands and are playing it for themselves. This allows a racist audience to listen to it - I bet there were thousands in the 50's who wouldn't go see Chuck Berry but would go see Elvis. In the process the music often gets toned down and made more acceptable to the white audience - thus attracting even more white squares. But I think this is happening less today. If you look at hip-hop, the most prominent rappers, producers, and DJ's are black, even though a huge chunk of the audience is white suburban teenagers. There's no longer that need for an intermediary to imitate and water down black music, the way Elvis did. In fact, being white is almost a handicap in hip-hop - you have to work harder to prove you're authentic and not some Vanilla Ice. So I don't think it a conscious decision on the part of most white people to reward white artists. There are just more white people than black people in the country, and if a musician can somehow appeal to that mass auidence, he's gonna make more money than if he sticks to only one slice of the poluation. In the past that meant finding white guys who could play black music, like Elvis, in order to overcome white audience's racism. In terms of today, I don't think that's necessarily a requirement.

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Name : Colleen32011, Gender : F, Race : White/Caucasian, Age : 21, City : NYC, State : NY Country : United States, Education level : 4 Years of College, 

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