>the black face of soul was never replaced by a white one.
>yeah you had the odd white soul singer making a name and
>doing well, but they were never seen as being properly
>'authentic' by anyone

right… i think with Soul, it got to a place where the essence could really not be co-opted because it was so intrinsically tied to the heart of black American life. But even then, you had a few singers who were eager to let you know that they grew up in “small towns” like Memphis (because in the popular Faulkner-nourished imagination, “southern” and “black” are almost the same thing) and so they are **almost** down with that black essence

except the masses (who black or white
>dont care for issues of authenticity either way, they just
>care if they like something or not).

I think that the masses DO care about authenticity… that’s why even people on the bus still view artists who write and play their own material as being “realer” than someone who makes shamelessly commercial product.

If we didn’t care about authenticity, then white rappers wouldn’t still need black sponsors (Eminem/Dre, Bubba Sparxx/Timbo) in order to be accepted by both black AND white audiences. And people would not have made fun of Vanilla Ice the way they did, because let’s face it… “ice ice baby” was a good record. People just had a hard time wrapping their heads around it because something about the guy did not seem “real” (as opposed to 3rd Bass, who never forgot to remind you that they danced in the Latin Quarter back in the day and had black girlfriends)