People who have nothing better to do with their lives are complaining that the new generation of pop stars like Billie Eilish & Olivia Rodrigo are using slang words that originated among African-Americans. People adapt to their environment, and we ALL use words that comes from MULTIPLE cultures without overthinking about it, because that's how we ALL use language!
What do you expect any American millennial/GenZ/etc to be speaking? If you're their age, you'll be learning and using words from TikTok. Tik-Tok is part of EVERY millennial/GenZ/etc's environment! Therefore, those words are part of the environment Billie Eilish and Olivia Rodrigo are growing up in.
Do they expect Olivia Rodrigo to be speaking with a Filipina accent even though she never lived in the Philippines? Are we only supposed to use words created by only people who share the same ancestry? Do we get rid of the use of English words that originated in the Latin, Hebrew, Greek or German languages?
I say to Olivia Rodrigo, Billie Eilish, and other young stars to use the slang you want to use and play the air violin for the "woke" pansies who don't like it!
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I'm old enough to remember when "bling" was a new word made popular in 1999 when Lil Wayne, BG, Juvenile, etc used in their song "Bling Bling". Why did that word "bling" not appear in earlier rap songs? Because "bling" was once regional slang limited to New Orleans, which only started to produce popular rappers in the late 90s, therefore you heard ZERO rappers in the East Coast/West Coast era using it. But now the whole world uses the word "bling".
So if a rapper from Harlem uses that word, is he/she "stealing" New Orleans culture?
No, because thanks to Lil Wayne & his crew, that word is now part of EVERYBODY'S environment!
They made music for EVERYBODY to enjoy, and that word is now for everybody!
Too bad if you don't like it!
After all, Lil Wayne & his crew wouldn't be able to credibly call themselves "Cash Money Millionaires" if they only got money from a group that's only 13% of the US population. They get their cash money by selling to EVERY part of the WORLD'S population. Even kids in remote villages are familiar with Lil Wayne's music.
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After all, you don't see me (having Latino ancestry) complaining about YG & Tyga using the words "Go Loko" and using Mexican imagery in their video.
Lowriders started among Chicanos, but I think it's all good when non-Chicanos like Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, Ice Cube, The Game, and YG drive lowriders in their videos!
And you don't see me (with a German last name) whining about City Girls and Afrika Bambaata sampling Kraftwerk (white German innovators of electronic music) early classic "Trans Europa Express".
I'm all about integration, and I encourage MORE integration!
