Are Blackness and Whiteness useful concepts in the study of popular music?

It is important to study a musical genres background and to see what its origins are if you want to learn the history. Whilst studying the background of a genre you can see whether the routes are black or white. But this should only really be looked as to how its genre was introduced and not on its class or how it should be represented. A lot of the time most genres were introduced by a black artist and then a white artist would create a similar sound and become extremely popular, for example Elvis Presley in Rock’n’roll music and today Eminem in Rap music. Popular musical genres cannot really be owned by a certain race but they do endorse a cultural influence. Studying the concepts is important to recognise the links between black and white artists but should only really be used as guidelines.
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