As we navigate our way through the baffling conundrums of cultural appropriation and related matters, here's some ancient writing on the subject.

"Freed's black slang and flamboyant delivery was soon cleaned up, with white jocks perfecting the pronunciation and selling Coke and Clearasil to white teens. But the honest, down-to-earth sounds of R&B did not produce a good format for advertisements aimed toward the new, large generation of white suburban baby-boomer teenyboppers, especially when racist, white, middle class parents did not approve of their children listening to black R&B. So they called it rock & roll and white men like Elvis Presley, Bill Haley, Carl Perkins and Jerry Lee Louis got to become rich and famous. Many songs written and performed by blacks were covered by faceless whites that put them on the charts..."

Now read on...