Madonna, one of the biggest American singers of all time, is white. But when her music first came on the radio in the early 1980s and no one knew what she looked like, people thought she was black: she sounded black and only black stations played her music.
That no one knew what she looked like at first was no accident. Her record company was trying to sell her music: putting a white face to black music would only make it harder. Madonna sang black music because that is what she grew up on.
Once she had some success she began to appear on television. Then everyone knew. She might have gone the way of Teena Marie, a white R & B singer much better known to blacks than to whites, but then white girls started to copy how she dressed. Even Time and Newsweek had to notice. That put her squarely in the white world.
In 1989 Rolling Stone magazine asked her, “Do you ever feel black?”
She said:
Oh yes, all the time. That’s a silly thing to say though, isn’t it? When I was a little girl, I wished I was black. All my girlfriends were black. I was living in Pontiac, Michigan, and I was definitely the minority in the neighborhood. White people were scarce there. All of my friends were black, and all the music I listened to was black. I was incredibly jealous of all my black girlfriends because they could have braids in their hair that stuck up everywhere. So I would go through this incredible ordeal of putting wire in my hair and braiding it so that I could make my hair stick up. I used to make cornrows and everything. But if being black is synonymous with having soul, then, yes, I feel that I am.
Whites tend to overstate their degree of friendship with blacks, but in this case I believe her: it is that bit about the wire. How many white girls in the 1970s would have gone to such trouble to copy anything black – unless they found themselves in a black girl world?
Most singers she loved were black too, like Ella Fitzgerald, Chaka Khan, Marvin Gaye, Sam Cooke, Harry Belafonte and Johnny Mathis.
But having black friends and listening to black music and even living in a place that is mostly black is not the same thing as being black. And it shows, as bell hooks points out:
White folks who do not see black pain never really understand the complexity of black pleasure. And it is no wonder then that when they attempt to imitate the joy in living which they see as the “essence” of soul and blackness, their cultural productions may have an air of sham and falseness that may titillate and even move white audiences yet leave many black folks cold.
Inotherwords, in a hundred years people will still be listening to Billie Holiday but not to Madonna.
See also:
Abagond 
Madonna is a genius marketer and promoter. My hat is off to her ability to spin straw into gold.
However, she has never done a single thing that could legitimatally be called artistically or musically significant. She is not now, nor has she ever has been, anywhere close to the avant garde or the cutting edge of performance. Madonna has sussed out that pocket that exists just a butt-hair left of mainstream, creating, in the minds of mediocre pop culture America, the simulacrum of a false avant garde, thereby enabling consumers of mass media to humor themselves with the quaint but false notion that they are being somehow “daring” or “experimental” via their consumption of product created by Madonna. In this way, Madonna has pandered to the lowest common denominator of pop culture consumer. Madonna’s approach to her “art” reflects the mercenary nature of her character. Cold and reptilian, without a hint of genuine passion or conviction, her music stands as a testament to exactly how inured American pop culture consumers have become to the emptiness of the pre-fabricated pabulum the music industry regularly peddles to us for profit. Exhibit A being her on-stage “kiss” with Brittney Spears.
Though, as noted above, I have a sense of respect for Madonna as a capitalist, in the vein of P.T. Barnum or Tony Robbins, I harbor nothing but contempt for Madonna as an “artist.” It is improvident to use her oeuvre as an exemplar of “passion,” or the lack thereof, in white music. There are plenty of examples of white musicians creating music and art with passion and commitment. Madonna is not one of them.
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I forgot to add that I place bell hooks, qua cultural commentator, at about the same level as Madonna qua artist. La hooks always stoops to the easy sound bite, the cheap shot. Devoid of any real world analysis or data, hooks somehow manages to carve out a niche for herself by spewing the most bilious, ludicrous, divisive crap she can think of (which isn’t saying much, because with a little imagination and time Blanc2 could be many time more bilious and divisive than hooks). I do think it is fitting that Agabond mentioned Madonna and hooks in the same post. They belong together in their own special level of Hell.
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Blanc2: So what white artist do you think would be better for a “blackness of” post like this?
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My post does not go to your basic thesis that Madonna grew up listening to black music and thus, at least early in her career, herself created “black” music. I think your post is fine as is. I was simply airing my lack of respect for Madonna as an artist of any real cultural or artistic significance (and my contempt for bell hooks, whom I place along with Andrea Dworkin and Catherine MacKinnon in the pantheon of dick-hating blowhards).
I could spend a long time on the issue of white musicians playing either “black” or “black influenced” music. In fact, there is a very good argument that, with the possible exception of Country & Western, virtually all American popular music derives from black music. After all, blues and jazz grew from the same musical root, and then begat rhythm & blues, which begat rock ‘n roll, which begat our entire system of popular music production and distribution.
But that is an esoteric issue for another day. As to contemporary white popular musicians who (a) play with genuine passion and conviction and (b) overtly incorporate elements of some form of black music into their work, without dwelling on it too long I could offer Hall & Oats; Paul Simon; The Police; The Red Hot Chili Peppers; and The Bad Plus.
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coincidentaly, i was just thinking about this a few days. remembering an interview i heard or read about how she used to wear cornrows. i was thinking about how kids can become so different from the expectation of their parents because of environment (black goth kids come to mind as do broken english speaking white kids from the suburbs,etc) i never came to a conclusion, though. it was just one of my many random thoughts. not so much about the cornrows, but was she just a white girl from a “poor” community who was drawn to the black people or was she just one of the “sistahs”.
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Madonna is the best singer in history! She’s awesome! This website made a list about the 10 best banned video clips ever and Madonna had 3 of her videos there, in 8th, 5th and FIRST position! She’s just the best! http://www.weshow.com/top10/en/music/top-10-banned-music-videos
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If you don’t mind me asking, where did you source the quotes from? They’re quite pertinent to an essay I’m writing, and I would like to look more into it.
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my apologies, i see…rolling stone
*read not skim!*
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boring article
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I STRONGLY disagree with this post! Madonna is The Queen of Pop. Her impact on music and pop culture is huge. People will still be listening to Madonna’s music is a hundred years along with Billie Holiday’s.
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The ‘blackness’ of Madonna? wth! She had a different sound; different from Debbie Gibbs, Debbie Boone, Pat Benatar, Cher, Debbie Harry, Cyndi Lauper, Kim Wilde, Belinda Carlisle, etc. The music arrangements in her music, were heavier on the downbeat most times. There appears to be confusion with the underlying music/riffs, and the performer. While I strongly disagree that Madonna sounded black (she never did to me) she was innovative, daring, challenged the ‘system’ as an artist, took risks, offered danger in her performances, had huge impact on fashion, but sounded black, hell no.
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I was incredibly jealous of all my black girlfriends because they could have braids in their hair that stuck up everywhere. So I would go through this incredible ordeal of putting wire in my hair and braiding it so that I could make my hair stick up.
Braids that stuck up everywhere? Sounds more like a caricature than real life.
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Definitely Madonna is one of the world’s music icon. Nobody can take that away from her.
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I wonder if her adoption of Black children has to do with her childhood desire to be more Black.
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This post is interesting in light of the “race bloopers” Madonna has made recently. What is interesting to me is that while Madonna will be regarded as an icon for fusing Pop with R&B strands fashion, and soft p0rn, Rihanna, who does the same, will not be. And while I’m not a fan of either artist, I think this alone is a great example of White priviledge, there’s the stamp of authenticity when you mix in the factor of a White artist doing that. They’ve excelled into credibility by being able to mimic Blackness. There’s White privilidge even when it comesto the fact of Blackness.
It’s funny she said all her girlfriends were Black, as during her Truth or dare documentary, the girl she said she idolized, looked up to most in her neighborhood, and tried to emulate throughout her childhood and teens, was a White blonde party girl. And from her Driven documentary which chronicled her life, she appeared to have a very White suburban upbringing with all White friends in a very European “Balerina, rock band culture.” This claim is most interesting.
I think her having a Black adopted child and rolling him out on the red carpet for the first time after dropping the n word and refusing to apologize for it until pressed has been a great tissue for her. Especially after the 12 years a slave premiere incident where she compared being asked not to use her phone to slavery as she beheld the movie. And there was that Spin interview.
Madonna is very talented.
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The author is pushing the Paul Mooney’s quote. It could be true.I don’t know Madonna’s true heart. We could only judge her by celebrity image.
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Madge win again.
http://www.acclaimedmusic.net/Current/1890-19art.htm
https://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/us_58d2214ce4b099c777b9dd42
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@abagond
Do you think Madonna is a nazi? I found a blog that claims that “Papa don’t preach” is a nazi song:
http://cinematicsymbolism.blogspot.com/2014/10/the-real-message-behind-madonnas-papa_15.html?m=1
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