Nothing is simply black and white, however these concepts can be useful in understanding the origin and influences of popular music such as life experience. Hatch notes how ‘pop music has always depended upon the interaction between white and black traditions’. ‘Rock and Roll came about from white people’s fascination with black music’ (Shank) but this works both ways, within new styles and fusions of music such as Bhangra we can see that ‘black music’ is also fascinated with styles typical of ‘white music’. Longhurst asserts that ‘artists like Apache Indian could be taken as an example of this phenomenon…music can not be seen as racially owned’. Sam Phillips believed that if he could discover a white man with the ‘’Negro sound’’ he would be successful. Artists such as Elvis blur the lines between ‘black’ and ‘white’ music and hence these concepts are ideological (Tagg),‘black’ and ‘white’ music are fused.
Much of this is rather good but I am not sure you have entirely understood Tagg's point about the ideological nature of an ethnic critique of popular music.
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