The core of Black music cannot be appropriated because its weight resists theft

Evidence

This is to say that when we’re talking about Black music, we’re talking about what the borrowers and collaborators don’t want to or simply can’t lift—centuries of weight, of atrocity we’ve never sufficiently worked through, the treasure you know is beyond theft because it’s too real, too rich, too heavy to steal. — Nikole Hannah-Jones et al., The 1619 Project, 1146

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to broader debates about cultural appropriation of Black music discussed elsewhere in this project and in Amiri Baraka’s Blues People.