Are blackness and whiteness useful concepts in the study of popular music?

Popular music in Britain today contains artists of many different racial backgrounds. To both put whiteness and blackness in categories to create a study in music may be difficult as music can all be linked, for example classical music is seen as a white were as jazz is seen as black. In modern popular music rock bands predominantly are all white; the only example of a black rock artist in the present charts is the lead singer from Bloc party. This is after Rock come from a black origin. Another example would be Eminem, who turned out to be one of the greatest rappers ever. To sum it up, I feel that there is no need to create a divide, as different raced artists perform in the same genres of music as each other, and as music evolves the same will happen with the type of people who sing it.

can popular music achieve genuine political change?

Popular music is all genres of music so it indefinite that all popular can achieve political change but it can be argued when artists such as ‘R n B’ artists write songs about knife crime and guns especially in our country , the government must look at why the song is written. In Britain alone this year knife crime has had more awareness and more songs about have been released. This shows workmanship between artists and the government. The artists release the music as the words of public, with this the government can listen and show there support, even though there has been complaints from within the gov towards how some music has been written. Finally it may be hard for political change from music because so many people have different tastes in music , and may not appreciate a certain genre of music and may not see the picture in side it.