Cultural Appropriation: What does it mean to be a culture vulture?

It's hard to tell a person, like Drake or Olamide, not to be inspired by a dance style or a song because it originated in another country or local government.

If there’s anything we’ve learned from Drake, it has to be that to find success in today’s globalised world, you have to draw inspiration from everywhere and everything.

This pattern of behaviour, which involves drawing from (or copying, depending on how you want to look at it) elements of a trend, a particular culture or anything for that matter and treating it as your own, is not exactly celebrated by most people.

In fact, the term for people who show signs of this behaviour refers to a hated bird that circles weak animals till they’re dead and feeds on their corpses.

What does it mean to be a culture vulture?

A culture vulture can be defined as many things and none of them is particularly nice.

A culture vulture is an individual who attempts to identify with aspects of another culture and claim some sort of ownership or relevance to it.

ALSO READ: Why the Gucci Gang needs to be disbanded

They do this by mimicking aspects of a culture that belongs to another group of people. Where they do this, credit is not usually given as much as it would be expected.

This creates the illusion that they have authentic connections to the aspect of the culture they are mimicking.

As the name implies, the biggest culture vultures are in the arts and culture. The term is used to describe many practitioners in music, art, fashion, movies and many other fields.

aka Appropriation

As time passes, it seems the world is shrinking into a small town connected by the Google Drive, Youtube and Twitter.

Trends and new cultures can emerge from the most obscure places. I mean, they are called trends because people adopt them.

The people we call culture vultures have this uncanny ability to spot any interesting aspect of a culture or practice before it becomes a trend.

 

Trends are like explosions in the sense that when things blow up, no-one really knows where it happened or who started it.

What it means to be a culture vulture is to be able to hop on a practice and find so much success with it that people begin to believe they started the entire thing.

One of such situations is happening before our very eyes.

Vultures everywhere or nah?

Did I hear you say Shaku-Shaku?

The dance move entered the pantheon of trend-worthiness shared by predecessors like Alanta and Azonto last year.

Songs like Legbegbe and Shepeteri are the official theme songs to the mainland-inspired dance, and the artiste who has slowly become the face of the entire movement is indigenous rapper, Olamide.

Not Mr Real, Idowest or Slimcase who created the two songs that the dance sailed to relevance on; it is Olamide who many see as the unofficial pop culture vulture of the streets.

Not long after the dance became a national trend in December, Olamide released “Science Student”, thanks to his wider reach and influence, the song has gone considerably father than the original theme songs.

So have his Instagram and Youtube dance videos, where Badoo has been seen dancing Shaku-Shaku like he got the blueprint from the Gods.

One of those videos has now been watched over 50,000 times. It is why, for a lot of people who are just becoming familiar with the entire movement, Olamide is the father of Shaku-Shaku.

There’s a common saying that nothing beneath the skies is original; all form of art and culture is built out of necessity or by borrowing from different cultures.

ALSO READ: How I tried 'Shaku-Shaku' and ended up breaking my knee

It is why the lines are blurry; it is hard to distinguish an inspired and informed individual from a culture vulture.

Take the father of globetrotting and inspiration, for instance.

Since he climbed to the top of the American pop and hip-hop charts, Drake has sustained his position by drawing inspiration from across the world.

After borrowing Wizkid, Sarz and DJ Maphorisa for his global hit, Drake took his shop to the United Kingdom and built the core of his album around some of the most influential sounds and names from that country’s scene.

This week, Pulse’s Joey Akan wrote about how Nigerian dancehall/reggae/alternative/afro-pop/etc artiste Burna Boy ‘influenced’ Drake’s choice of “More Life” as the title for the album.

It turns out Burna had recorded 5 songs for the latter’s album, one of them was titled “More Life”.

Remember when we talk about credit and culture vultures? Drake did not acknowledge Burna on the album; the one song he picked was cut down and chopped with the Nigerian act’s voice barely appearing at its end.

Meh, nobody can own inspiration

To be fair, today’s world has blurred borders both on land and in the mind.

In doing the most mundane things such as scouring Youtube or surfing for music, you are likely to come across stuff from different continents and sub-cultures in mere minutes.

Content and the elements of various cultures are flying around the place. And naturally, we tend to be inspired by what we see and enjoy, regardless of where it comes from.

It is why years after she began to project the image of the strong African female, Beyonce became a poster star for Fela’s music at her baby shower and used Laolu Sebanjo’s face paintings in the video for “Sorry”, off her Lemonade album.

 

It is why in a way, everyone is a culture vulture. We adopt the things that inspire or interest us, regardless of whether or not we know or understand the origins.

ALSO READ: The full story of how Drake cut Burna from his "More Life" project

In certain cases, those things become a part of our identity and when people begin to associate them with us, it is easier to just let it slide and accept the praise.

What does it mean to be a culture vulture? It means to be open to inspiration, regardless of where it comes from.

Giving credit, though, is another issue that can determine the difference between a healthy relationship with one’s influences and being a literal vulture.

Try not be a vulture.

source http://www.pulse.ng/gist/pop-culture/what-does-it-mean-to-be-a-culture-vulture-id7901829.html