Bruno Mars Slammed By YouTuber For Appropriating Black Culture & His Fans Are Pissed — Watch
March 9, 2018
Bruno Mars Slammed By YouTuber For Appropriating Black Culture & His Fans Are Pissed — Watch
Sensei Aishitemasu got into a heated discussion about Bruno Mars, in which she slammed him for cultural appropriation. Watch here, then see how fans are firing back at her for her opinion.
Bruno Mars has long been accused of appropriating black culture, but the debate of whether or not he’s a cultural appropriator was taken to a whole new level in an episode of YouTube’s The Grapevine on March 8. The 25-minute discussion got intense, and YouTuber, Sensei Aishitemasu, stands out in the footage for her in-depth analysis of why the popular singer should not profit off “black music” as a non-black person of color. “Bruno Mars is 100 percent a cultural appropriator,” Sensei ranted. “He is racially ambiguous. He is not black, at all, and he plays up his racial ambiguity to be able to do cross-genre and going into different places.”
She went on to point out that comparisons of Bruno to Michael Jackson are a “false equivalency,” because things were so different when the King of Pop was at the height of his career than they are now. “I don’t even think that Michael Jackson, now, in this day in age, would be able to get to the point that he got to previously,” she explained. “And a huge part of that is because people have realized that they prefer their black music and their black culture from a non-black face.” Sensei also slammed Bruno for not being an “original artist,” like MJ and Prince. “What Bruno Mars does, is he takes pre-existing work and he just completely, word-for-word recreates it, extrapolates it,” she went on. “He does not create it, he does not improve upon it, he does not make it better. He’s a karaoke singer, he’s a wedding singer, he’s the person you hire to do Michael Jackson and Prince covers. Yet Bruno Mars has an Album of the Year Grammy and Prince never won an Album of the Year Grammy.”
In conclusion, she powerfully stated,”Bruno Mars got that Grammy because white people love him because she’s not black, period. The issue is: We want our black culture from non-black bodies. And Bruno Mars is like — bam, I’ll give it to you.” While some at the roundtable disagreed with Sensei, for the most part, her segment was met with major cheers and a round of applause. As you can see from the following tweets, Bruno fans came after Sensei once the video was posted:
Bruno Mars is literally the LEAST problematic musician out here and y’all want to bash him for making Bops that everyone and their grandma can dance to? I mean all that energy can be used for calling out ACTUAL culture vultures but… 😒 pic.twitter.com/iBfm4OR32m
— Tara A N G E L 🗝☮⚛ (@TaraAngel94) March 9, 2018
What prince not winning a album of the year in the 1980s got to do with Bruno Mars winning one in 2017 😂😂😂😂😂
— Gabe (@LightSkinLeroy4) March 9, 2018
Y’all are just trying to find reasons to hate Bruno Mars.. if he’s not your cup of tea then he’s not your cup of tea but to say that he isn’t talented and appropriates black culture to validate your argument is wack.. just say you don’t like him and move on
— Ja'Von Ongele (@JaiTheLioness) March 9, 2018
Bruno Mars gave me VERSACE ON THE MOTHER FUCKING FLOOR & y'all want me to hate him because he's a non black artist who EXCELS at making R&B music? bitch, fuck you.
— kodisha (@nova_uncut) March 9, 2018
Shorty was ranting about Bruno Mars and over talked any rebuttals because she knew she sounded like a dam fool and didn't want anyone else to make a point
— Sante (@I_am_Syn_City) March 9, 2018
This is far from the first time that Bruno has been accused of cultural appropriation, and he addressed it in a 2017 interview with Latina. “When you say “black music,” understand that you are talkning about rock, jazz, R&B, reggae, funk, doo-wop, hip-hop, and MoTown,” she said. “Black people created it all. Being Puerto Rican, even salsa music stems back to the Motherland. So, in my world, black music means everything.”