In reply to eric.

I get what you're saying, but I disagree. I've always heard soulful black influences in his style of singing and think his attention to black culture has always been there. But he's signed to a record label and they call the shots, so he recorded whatever style they told him to. My issue with cultural appropriation is not with the artists, but the entities behind them; large non-black owned corporations. If black artists and creatives had bigger shares of ownership, then we could have real gatekeepers to preserve the culture and its origins.