but james brown clearly makes black music.

the smiths clearly do not.

sure, a lot of times one hand washes the other.

the beatles took black music and put their own spin on it,
eventually it became something different altogether.

just like sly stone put his own spin on psychedlica
and it became something different altogether.

but i always hate arguments that claim "there's no such thing as black music."

that's like saying there's no such thing as the color black or the color white simply because some things are gray.