A video by The Grapevine which debates whether or not Bruno Mars is appropriating black culture has garnered a ton of reaction.
Critic Sensei Aishitemasu, who's featured in the vid, had some pretty harsh words for the 2018 Grammy winner for album of the year.
“Bruno Mars is 100 percent a cultural appropriator,” Aishitemasu said. “He is racially ambiguous. He is not black, at all, and he plays up his racial ambiguity to be able to do cross-genre and going into different places.
"What Bruno Mars does, is he takes pre-existing work and he just completely, word-for-word recreates it, extrapolates it,” she continued. “He does not create it, he does not improve upon it, he does not make it better. He’s a karaoke singer, he’s a wedding singer, he’s the person you hire to do Michael Jackson and Prince covers. Yet Bruno Mars has an Album of the Year Grammy and Prince never won an Album of the Year Grammy.”
Her opinion has sparked much debate on Twitter, as Mars has become today's trending topic. Here's some of the reaction:
this is why i hate bruno mars @seren_sensei says it all pic.twitter.com/CRLktsA2ea
— hannie (@hannahmburrell) March 9, 2018
Bruno Mars is a “culture vulture”, but a guy from Canada comes out with caribbean singles and a fake accent, and yall danced to it and made it a #1 single. I guess culture vultures are based on fandom.
— SC: GivinGameO (@InternationalO) March 9, 2018
People can’t complain about Bruno Mars “appropriating Black music”, when it’s Black people who abandoned the old school R&B/funk genre that we created. We have a bad habit of that. Then we won’t find it relevant until white people think it’s relevant
— Tariq Nasheed (@tariqnasheed) March 9, 2018
Bruno Mars gave me VERSACE ON THE MOTHER FUCKING FLOOR & y'all want me to hate him because he's a non black artist who EXCELS at making R&B music? bitch, fuck you.
— kodisha (@nova_uncut) March 9, 2018
All Bruno Mars wanna do is sniff is cocaine, curl his hair, and dance his ass off to old school love songs. Leave that little man alone and go to work.
— SUPER BOWL CHAMPS (@yourRHOleModel) March 9, 2018
*continues to happily listen to Bruno Mars* pic.twitter.com/e0sG61DgCY
— E.Nicole (@erikastruth) March 9, 2018
lmfaoooo y’all think Bruno Mars has to “steal” our culture to sell?!? This man has been providing BOPS for over a decade, not only as a solo artist but for some of your faves
— 🤷🏾♀️ (@colorme_unfazed) March 9, 2018
Bruno Mars definitely isn’t a cultural appropriatier. If anything, people are mad at the fact that he and his production team (that includes black people) revived music that we collectively ruled out as corny 20+ years ago and niggas mad they didn’t think of it first, lol...
— Nightfall EP - OUT NOW (@LAKIMisAlive) March 9, 2018
so i see today’s bruno mars/mimicry/appropriation conversation and i’ve got a free thinkpiece for someone who likes writing more than i do...
— El Flaco (@bomani_jones) March 9, 2018
aside from skin color, the difference between what bruno does on 24k and donald glover on “awaken...” is?
Bruno Mars looking at these Tweets. pic.twitter.com/EbSbfqp3lH
— Cameron Grant (@coolghost101) March 9, 2018
Take that same energy you have to be mad at Bruno Mars and bring it over to Tekashi, Post Malone, Lil Pump, etc
— hey football head (@nikesonmyTWEET) March 9, 2018
Bruno Mars wrote/co-wrote:
— Wọlé II (@Kingwole) March 9, 2018
1. CeeLo - Fuck You
2. Flo-Rida - Right Round
3. Kanye, Hov & Beyonce - Lift Off
4. Brandy - Long Distance
5. Sean Kingston - Dumb Love
6. Sugarbabes - Get Sexy
7. Snoop & Khalifa - Young, Wild & Free.
Put respect on the man's name.
I see a lot of Bruno Mars debates. But making dude out to be a cultural appropriator is missing the point. The racial system which allows Bruno to dominate R&B AND pop categories with a Black AF album like 24K Magic is the real issue. Bruno is just doing the music he loves.
— Keith Murphy (@murphdogg29) March 9, 2018
I've said it a million times, Bruno Mars is a culture vulture. He literally steals, copy and pastes black music and repackages it as his own. That's like someone stealing a vase from your house and then gifting it to you later as their own & then YOU have the nerve to praise it!
— Patti's Lost Background Singer (@driftingremix) March 9, 2018
I have no beef with Bruno Mars whatsoever. People didn't have a problem with Bruno Mars until he started winning awards and shutting down people with his performances. Some of you woke black people need to sit the fuck down, y'all are the ones who helped ushered Trump into office
— Mr. Weeks ✊🏽 (@MrDane1982) March 9, 2018
bruno mars discourse is generated by the Russians to distract black twitter stay woke
— g (@thugtear) March 9, 2018
Twitter (and black Twitter) seems to be pretty solidly Team Bruno on this one. What do you think?