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Tuesday, November 24, 2009

Opinion / Mike McCray / News Who's Taylor Swift?

Posted By on Tue, Nov 24, 2009 at 4:42 PM

WARNING: Sweeping generalizations about the musical tastes of black people will be made in this post…I’m black soooo, it’s cool.

I hate being put in a position to express the views and opinions of my race. This time, I think I’ll take a stab at speaking for “my people.”

Following the American Music Awards on Twitter, not only did I get into an argument with a zealous Michael Jackson fan, but I also further realized that black people, for the most part, don’t keep up with white pop stars.

Tweets like “ Damn you Kanye...ain’t nobody know who this skeeza was before the VMA’s now they riding with her like Seabiscuit to the finish line" lead black people to be convinced that Taylor Swift was a nobody before Kanye West embarrassed her on the MTV Video Music Awards, thus throwing her in the spotlight and that’s because, for the most part, we have no idea who these white pop stars are.

Sure there’s Justin Timberlake, Miley Cyrus (I’ve seen Hannah Montana backpacks in the projects for Christ’s sake), Lady Gaga and other artists are just big everywhere but you’d be hard pressed to find a black person who can name a Taylor Swift song let alone own the album.

Then she beat Michael Jackson for awards and people were looking for the digital Dr. King to start marching against her, when as one of my followers so nicely put, MJ is great but he didn’t do much this year but die. (The subsequent retweet is what started my “debates” with MJ fans).

Then Adam Lambert gets on stage and the confusion mixed with homophobia nearly made my Blackberry explode. Truth is, I don’t know many black people that have followed American Idol since the Ruben, Fantasia days and that was what...? 5 years ago?

The point of this? Really isn’t one. Just a cultural observation. The same way I had to Google white actresses not named Anne Hathaway because they all kind of look alike to me is probably the same reason “my people” aren’t aware of the millions of albums Taylor Swift sold this year and really think Kanye West catapulted her to stardom.

Hey, if you want us to know, play it on Power 98.

It’s a black thing.

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