One of the Super Bowls major moments is the singing of the National Anthem, let’s reflect back to last year’s Super Bowl where Christina Aguilera and her impersonation of a stereotypical R&B singer took center stage and performed the “Star Spangled Banner”… sadly. Most upsetting to Black people about Christina Aguilera is not the ‘she sounds just like a Black singer’ statement people have mistakenly attached to her for her entire career, but that she puts a run on every note! If you do not know what a run is, it that thing you notice black singers do when they hit a not and they control it by holding it but not steady it seems like it is going up and down… if that does not make you understand what a run is, it is that thing Christina Aguilera does all the time that makes you think she sounds like a Black singer. For the record you do not have to put a run on every other note, Luther may have done it 3 times an album and he was the master! Luckily for you, Christina, security was tight at the Superbowl… Teena Marie (the white woman BLACK people say sounds like a Black singer) crawled up out her grave to slap the shit out of you, but the cops held her off.
Unfortunately it was a Black person singing the National Anthem that led to Christina Aguilera’s style. Ms. Aguilera attended a high school basketball game when she was 8 years old and saw Spectacular Jones, her real name, sing the longest Anthem in history, longer than the game it was for. After ‘land of the free’ Spectacular screamed out ‘REEEMIX’ another first, the Star Spangled Banner monster mix. A little Christina Aguilera, the only person in attendance that night who left impressed by Spectacular Jones, turned to her mother and said “mama I wanna sing”. Her mother took another swig of the vodka she snuck in, now mixed with Hawaiian Punch purchased at the school concession stand looked at little Christina and said the words Black people have said to Christina for the past 15 years… “Do you ever shut the fuck up”?
Michael Bolton, yes ‘the’ Michael Bolton. Unlike Elvis, Eminem, and Hall from Hall and Oates (nobody gives a damn about Oates) who all listened to the songs of Black artists and borrowed the style to eventually shape their own personal styles, Michael Bolton borrowed the whole damn song. Elvis saw Little Richard and wanted to move like him, Eminem heard Rakim and wanted to flow that way, Hall listened to the Temptations and wanted to sound like David Ruffin and Paul Williams. Michael Bolton heard Otis Redding and said “if it works for him, my long flowing blond hair and extremely average voice can make tens of millions”. We honor Christina and Michael because where would they be without Black people! I think sitting at an actual dock, at an actual bay, watching an actual tide roll away… penniless.
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