“Commodification of the Blues” or “Racial Stratification”

Blues is a genre that has been embraced world wide from all kinds of people from various cultures and nationalities. This commercialization and popularization of the genre led to a lossage of the essence of the genre. Its historical and emotional context (black roots) were removed and no longer understood. This is demonstrated by various European bands and artists recreating and covering the original African American blues works, and not acknowledging the black creativity that was involved. Examples include groups like The Beatles and artists like Elvis; for example, Elvis Pressley stole the adlibs from Jezebel.

Blues became a competition of who could cover black music the best and get the most money for it. Blues was no longer an artistic expression, but a commodity. In addition to this, the commercialized “blues business” perpetuated racism and racial / social stratification [ a complete disregard for the work done by African Americans strictly because they were African American ] , which is completely unacceptable. Historically, the talent of African Americans has been minimized and disregarded ; the world should know about the origins of the blues and the  commercialized blues business because the impact of the Blues genre is far to large to be based on a false narrative.

 

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