Motown Barbie

As I watched VH1’s Diva’s the other night, I realized Jessica Simpson wasn’t the first to do it. Sing Black, I mean. You can go all the way back to Mildred Bailey in the 1930’s who looked white but sang black. In fact, there were many white vocalists who mimicked the Black sound and became famous. Elvis did it, too.
What struck me about Jessica Simpson was how un-Black she looks. In fact, she looks more like Barbie than any other contemporary popular singer. She has that curvaceous breast-waist-hips hourglass shape that characterizes Barbie, her long blonde hair is just the right length and straightness and her face has that perfect chiseled look of a doll. Not only her name sounds so like one of Barbie’s friends, but her public persona—ditzy blonde—is just what we expect Barbie to be. If you go to Jessica’s website and click on “about me!,” you’ll find some very deep thoughts about how to buy her products and merchandise. Oh, how it all fits together.
I had seen Jessica Simpson for a few minutes here and there on various TV shows, but had not heard her sing until the other night. What a shock to watch Barbie sing like she had grown up in Motown. And who was her “partner” on Divas? Joss Stone, another VERY white girl who sings more like Nancy Wilson than Leslie Gore. The irony was that they were singing on either side of Gladys Knight, who was one of the few real divas on that show. So there is the very talented Gladys Knight with two pale white girls singing the soul sound. Even Joss looks like Hair-Extensions Barbie.
What do I learn from all of this? To be popular in today’s popular music climate, it helps to be either really ethnic, like Christina Aguillera and Kelis, or slutty, like Christina Aguillera and Kelis—or else you can sing like you are Black but look like Barbie. Even Nora Jones is ethnic—half Indian (as in the country India).
As California became the first continental state to have whites in the minority, so goes the rest of the country. Popular music is reflecting those trends. When I was a teenager, it was cool to be white and not-so-cool to be any other color. Now, in popular music anyway, it’s not cool to be white. And if you are, at least don’t sing like it. I wonder if these white girls appreciate the Black Blues singers on whose backs they stand. And I wonder if they can really understand the deep pain from centuries of oppression that brought forth the Blues.