Sometimes the line between cultural appreciation and cultural appropriation is crossed by the K-Pop industry. The latest on the list who has come under fire is Blackpink’s Lisa. The fans were excited when her label YG Entertainment announced that the singer will have her solo debut.
Lisa has broken several records with her solo LaLisa but her choice of style like box braids have made some of her fans unhappy. Braiding styles like cornrows, box braids and dreads are a part of African culture. They have been discriminated against for wearing these styles as well. Black fans of Lisa clearly did not appreciate this or anyone who dons box braids only for ‘badass’ and ‘hip-hop’ concepts.
Fans feel it was a poor choice of style as there is a negative stigma against Blacks wearing such hairstyles. Lisa and Blackpink have both been responsible for cultural appropriation before as well. Even for Lisa’s solo songs, Lalisa and Money, her music producers have made use of AAVE (African-American Vernacular English). Many Black fans would have been okay with this if she hadn’t used ‘blaccent’.
But even after being discriminated against, they did not criticize Lisa. Fans were expressing that hip-hop is a music genre and she and her team did not have to rely on AAVE and blaccent to make her song ‘hip-hop’. Many fans chose to mail YG to address the situation.
Fans’ emails seemingly fell to deaf ears as one fan decided to inform Lisa when they got a chance to speak through a video call for a fan sign. They tried to explain that they did not want to throw hate but educate the singer. This was with the intention that Lisa might not repeat this mistake again and apologize for it.
Lisa Apologized To Her Fans
Fans were extremely happy when Lisa extended her usual one-minute fan sign for six minutes so that the fan could explain it to her. Lisa apologized and told the fan to tell all of her friends that she did not mean any harm. Many fans started circulating the fans sign video recording to alert Black fans who had been hurt or uncomfortable.
But some fans have been trying to take the video down because they think that it could be used to start fan wars. They are doing it to avoid trolls from sending hate to Lisa. Some fans also think that Lisa was wearing Thai braids and was not doing cultural appropriation. They were annoyed that a fan made Lisa uncomfortable.
The fans are divided on this but netizens and locals who are not a part of K-Pop Twitter are impressed that the singer acknowledged and apologized for it. However, some fans do think that this will solve any issue as it is her label YG who have repeated this cultural appropriation.
A fan tweeted, “I hope they won’t use that video for fanwars. Not every idol faces that kind of criticism on the spot and answer it right away. Others would swerve the topic and not respond even indirectly. Please show respect on her.” Another fan thought, “She herself mentioned “please tell your friends” she wanted people to know she’s sorry tf is wrong w y’all.”
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