Mimetic Extraction and Commodification in the Blues

Much has been said about the influence exerted upon white mainstream culture by blackface minstrelsy in the 19th century. The demise of the genre and the rise of the blues heralded Black folk’s construction of a popular space in which they sang of their real life experiences. Similar to blackface, the blues in mainstream White culture operates as the space in which racial difference is negotiated and utilized to control blackness and direct its energy according to an artist's own cultural aesthetic and worldview.