Theft and Artistry introduces conflicts on cultural appropriation within music. It takes examples of popular tracks and discusses the cultural conflict its involved in. Personally, as a music lover, I am aware of how different music genres are originated from different cultures, but I never consider a piece of music has to carry a certain label. A genre may be addressed as originated from culture because people from that culture first discover, or simply because its people are mostly making music in that genre. Artistic works always need inspiration, when an artist is inspired, that inspiring thing is no longer the object of the artist’s creation, but the creation itself is representing the artist’s idea. Even when two creations look similar, the creators of either creation hold different beliefs when creating their works, and that shouldn’t be considered stealing or plagiarizing. Everything is, in a way, borrowed or stolen. No one is the owner of the language, or the owner of music, or color, every creation is a rearrangement of already-existing elements. When the critics in the text argue that Bieber’s song is absenting the full presence of Black and Brown woman and Hymn For The Weekend is a stereotype of Indian’s culture, I think the critics are holding their stereotypes of nowadays music. Regardless of the artists are actually doing this or not, we don’t and will never know their initial intentions and ideas, isn’t the behavior of labeling others’ works without knowing all aspects of them not very “sciency”?
Some people today are over interpreting, and maliciously interpreting artworks, trying to find every possible detail and maximize to vilify either the artist or the artwork. As an outsider of the artist’s mind, we should not suppose what the artist means and just express those guesses as of our personal interpretations.