Cultural Appropriation

[Dystopia]

I think the blues example is a bit complicated to explain. Let's talk hip hop instead - Whether it is gangsta rap, mainstream, underground or just hybrid old school hip hop, it's a genre appreciated by people of different races. Now, it's fine for anyone to like hip hop - But let's imagine a few iconic songs by black rappers singing about the poverty and racism against black people... If you're white (or any other race) you can enjoy the song and even cry when you listen to it, but you simply can't understand the situation exactly like the group being oppressed in the song because you are not them and will never know in the same exact terms... Many people think rappers are dumb just because they occasionally say "nigga" during songs, but they forget that culturally it can mean a lot for a black person to say the n word to another black person (also, the majority of good artists don't say nigga that much, I can only think of Lil Wayne for that case and he is certainly not very good). 

Using an easier example to explain - I'm Portuguese, and I listen to Spanish music because I can comprehend spoken-Spanish (and read a bit) and I enjoy lots of Spanish music... I can enjoy the music, but my Spanish friends have a much deeper understanding of the artists, the meaning of each song and they relate to specific things only Spanish people (sometimes from only some geographical areas and with specific backgrounds) will properly understand. What I'm saying is not to listen to it, but don't pretend you're an expert about it. I'm not an expert on Spanish music, I just enjoy some of it. I will probably never understand the meaning of some styles of music unless I lived in Spain for quite some time.

Have you ever brought up kids on a council estate in London? For the US readers thats an estate with low rent built for poor people by the county council. In London that usually means living in a shithole. Theres exceptions of course but most aren't really the kind of places you stop for a friendly chat.
My Mum did. This one was mainly populated by black people, they were the majority. Theres alot of estates like that. One time my brother was playing in the park and my Mum was doing something. I can't remember what it was. She turned around to hear two black children debating whether or not to "pinch the white baby". See one of the neighbors had spread the rumor that the reason she didn't socialize with the local community much was because she was racist. We were dog shit there and she wasn't left with any illusions otherwise.
 Does this mean my family can more deeply appreciate eminem than a black family in a white majority estate then? I'm not being sarcastic. I'm genuinely asking because that seems to be where your logic leads. That simply being of the same color as the artist can grant someone a greater insight into the music than someone who has otherwise all the same knowledge they do but isn't the same color as the artist.

I'm not sure this is comparable to a language barrier.

Hey, I think you're painting this as black and white excessively - It depends on context and the person, their experiences and background. I never said only black people can relate to black artists, I merely said that in songs that portray racism against black people in some circumstances are more deeply understand by black people who have gone trough the exact same problems, and it makes perfect sense in my opinion.

I think your case is fine, the only thing is that I don't know if Eminem has any songs against racism, specifically against white people, I don't listen to a lot of Eminem, honestly, it's mostly old school stuff, older than Eminem. I remember in an interviewed him saying it was so hard to break into the business because people working there were overwhelmingly black and thought a white boy from Detroit couldn't be a rapper, but he still made it - I respect that immensely, but that wasn't my point.

I'm sorry that you have gone trough your situation, and I think if there was a song from some white artist who's been trough the same situation and portrayed it accuratelly, you could relate and would understand it better than most people who haven't gone trough the same. Personally, I don't feel the "racism" parts of songs as well because I've pretty much never suffered from it, but I feel sorry for people.

The barriers I mentioned are more than language, language in the situation I proposed was actually the less significant barrier to understand things. I can understand singing in Spanish, and I can sing it more or less myself (with some grammar mistakes occasionally), and enjoy the music - But I'm not going to dress up with the stereotype of a Spaniard, pretend I'm a conquistador and sing the songs as if I was Spanish, because I'm simply not and I would be doing it just for fun and not because it means something when many traditional spanish music means a lot to spanish people.

Using an easy example - Bullfighting is a Spaniard thing, but done all around the world - The problem isn't that it's done in other places (well I'm against bullfighting but putting that aside for a moment...), the problem would be if other countries suddenly decided to directly or indirectly say that bullfighting was invented by them and it's good because of them when that isn't the case.