Continuing the discussion from White rappers:
So, in order to end the derail on white rappers to punk, I thought we could start a new thread on just punk.
To be fair, it was on white rappers, so it’s not too racist! 
But how white is punk, anyhow? Completely white? Mostly white? More white with hardcore?
Depends. Modern country pop-with-drawl-and-twangs, yes. Trace that genre far enough back in U.S. musical history though and you’ll find yourself at the diverse nexus known today as American roots.
Did you know bluegrass is huge in Japan? One of the profs on my committee plays mandolin in a bluegrass band and regularly goes to Japan and plays with bands there.
Nope, but then anything odd like that hitting it big in Japan totally fails to surprise me anymore.
Prog is kind of a messy term… there was a lot of influence back and forth with jazz.
Miles’ Bitches Brew in a lot of ways is as much prog/krautrock as it is jazz.
20-ish years ago, definitely (and we’re speaking of modern country, not bluegrass or country blues). These days, with Darius Rucker being a hugely popular, award-winning country artist, not so much.
I finally saw the prof present some of his work and it goes back to the Perry exhibition in 1853 or whatever year it was. He had some paintings from japan of the event, and one is of a minstrel band, playing banjos and mandolins!
Denis also told a great story about the first time he heard a bluegrass band in Japan. He said they had the perfect Appalachian vocals in their songs, the perfect accents, but when he went to talk to them after - they knew not a word of English! But the scene has a strong emphasis on reproducing the sound and lyrics perfectly. He likes to improvise, which clashes with his Japanese musical colleagues style of faithful representation…
100% of all professional singers of Wagner operas I have ever known personally here in Germany were black. Ok, that was all my parents’ neighbor, but still.
For country you got your Charley Pride.
And for hardcore there were the Bad Brains.
But yeah, since these exceptions are so iconic it kinda underscores how rare they are among the pantheon of commercial giants within their genres.
