Yes, that was the year of Miley's twerking, but the next year Beyonce would cleanse all our palettes by performing "Flawless" at the same award show with the word "feminist" behind her, which was still controversial at the time.
That was Hip-Hop's " golden year," but it was also the year Macklemore was nominated for the Best Rap Album Grammy he later won over Kendrick Lamar's masterpiece, good kid, m.A.A.d city. But it was coming.Ģ013 was the midst of a renaissance in which Hip-Hop, rap, and, by proxy, Black culture were moving from the fringes to the mainstream, and so was Black activism. Cultural appropriation was not in the common lexicon yet. In the mainstream, the conversation ended with personal responsibility - that Miley was just out of control and being wild and vulgar, traits that, to them, were only confirmed by her proximity to Black culture.
She followed all this up with a grand performance at the VMA awards, at which she wore "space buns," a hairstyle appropriated from Black women's natural protective style called bantu knots, and, once again, twerked surrounded by an entourage of Black women.Īnd while people were happy to gape and gasp at Miley's transformation and audacity, Black women were pointing out the levels of cultural appropriation but were met with silence or even gaslighting. In this video, Miley is surrounded by a Black entourage, doing her best caricature of Black, hip-hop culture from her outfits to her mannerisms to those damn grills.
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