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You'd be forgiven, given how frequently the phrase has made headlines over the past year, for thinking that the issue of cultural appropriation in music is a relatively new one. It's not though - it's just risen up and into the public's consciousness with the help of a host of socially aware pop stars.
It's a debate that many musicians of colour (mostly, interestingly enough, women of colour) have instigated, and that many white musicians have finally been forced to answer to. That's why it's in the news more - not because it's an issue that's just begun, but because it's one thats reaching breaking point.
If you've been following the issue, you'll already know that the likes of Miley Cyrus, Taylor Swift and Katy Perry have been called out on their problematic behaviour - and their responses have been something of a mixed bag.
If you're struggling to get your head around why, exactly, borrowing from black culture is so problematic, Nicki Minaj has the perfect explanation. "If you want to enjoy our culture and our lifestyle," she said to the New York Times Magazine, "bond with us, dance with us, have fun with us, twerk with us, rap with us, then you should also want to know what affects us, what is bothering us, what we feel is unfair to us. You shouldn’t not want to know that."
She added, in comments directed at Miley Cyrus, "The fact that you feel upset about me speaking on something that affects black women makes me feel like you have some big balls. You’re in videos with black men, and you’re bringing out black women on your stages, but you don’t want to know how black women feel about something that’s so important?"
There can be no homogenous voice on either side of this debate though (and there are also far more than two sides), and Azealia Banks is here to remind us of that. "I wish Nic would stop trying to turn this Miley thing into a race issue," she tweeted, "cuz she was mute about cultural approp. until she became 'victim'... Plus how u gonna complain about a video with skinny women when ur body is enhanced... You too were once a skinny woman."
