Takeover Magazine 1st issue april 15th 2016 | Page 55

Adele is not like Iggy Azalea, or Macklemore, or any other white person borrowing
from black cultural traditions. I’m perplexed that people even consider what Adele
does to be soul or anything reminiscent of black music. In 2012, Magnetic Fields’
Stephin Merritt accused Adele fans of being racist. Speaking with LA Weekly,
Merritt explained, “She really has a lovely voice, but I only get suspicious when
people get excited about British people who sound like American black people.”
Merritt went on to add, “Basically she sounds like Anita Baker. And people are
not, you know, wild and crazy about Anita Baker.”
No the fuck Adele doesn’t.
As a child who reportedly (by my older sister) would cry in the car as a toddler
when an Anita Baker song ended on the radio (then got home and cried again until
it was played on a record player), I take great offense to this. I invite Stephen
Merritt and others who share this sentiment to listen to Anita Baker’s One Night
Only live album (now on Spotify). If anything, this is an example of racism in
that white people get extra credit for simply showing up. It’s a similar problem I
had with GQ christening Sam Smith “the new face of soul.” I imagine Jon B
and Remy Shand are still somewhere pissed about that.
Ain’t no soul there, bih.
Adele has a lovely voice, but it does not possess the grit, fluidity, and genuine
soulful tone of a singer like Anita Baker. Frankly, outside of “Rolling in the Deep,”
which I suppose has a little kick to it—enough to get Aretha Franklin and many a
black auntie to stomp their feet in salute—Adele is not at all soulful sonically or
vocally.
Nevertheless, the “Adele sounds black” narrative has returned forcefully but is
no less fraudulent a stance.
I quite fancy Adele as a person (see her latest Rolling Stone cover story) and a
few songs here and there, but one reason why I don’t gravitate toward her as most
on Planet Earth do is that her music is not soulful. Adele is not like Amy
Winehouse, whom I adored and who serves as much more apt comparison to this
sort of racialized critique. Adele is not Christina Aguilera, who impressed the late
Whitney Houston with her rendition of “Run to You.” She’s not even the
Australian singer Grace, who has a gorgeous cover of Nina Simone’s “Love Me or
Leave Me” on NINA REVISTED: A Tribute to Nina Simone.
DON’T FALL INTO THE TRAP OF CROWNING ANY WHITE SINGER WITH A
DECENT VOICE A SOUL SINGER.
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