Pop star Gwen Stefani stands accused of appropriating black culture in the music video for her new song, “Light My Fire.”
The song was done in collaboration with Jamaican rapper Sean Paul and singer Shenseea. Stefani faces criticism for putting her hair in dreadlocks and wearing a green, black and yellow dress reminiscent of the Jamaican flag in the video.
“Y’all. Mother Appropriation is BACK!!!! Where my 2000s No Doubt/Gwen hive at!!!?? ITS TIME!!!” one person tweeted in reply, referring to the fact that the “Hollaback Girl” singer has been accused of this exact transgression in the past.
“Dear Gwen, You’re far too comfortable with cultural appropriation. Y’all remember the harajuku girls? The bindi she chose to wear in one of her videos? The bantu knots? The imitation of indigenous culture within a music video, as well as, indecently portraying Latina women?” another person commented.
Stefani’s 2004 album “Love. Angel. Music. Baby.” featured Japanese backup dancers and multiple references to Tokyo’s Harajuku fashion. At the time, critics called out Stefani’s appropriation of that culture as well. Comedian Margaret Cho referred to it as a “minstrel show” in 2006, per CNN.
The “Don’t Speak” composer hasn’t released a statement on the current controversy. However, in a 2021 interview with Paper magazine, she did address past accusations of stealing from other cultures.
“If we didn’t buy and sell and trade our cultures in, we wouldn’t have so much beauty, you know?” she said at the time. “We learn from each other, we share from each other, we grow from each other. And all these rules are just dividing us more and more.”
Elsewhere in the article, Stefani talks about being enamored by Japanese culture from a young age because her father traveled there for work and came home with souvenirs and stories.
“If you read the actual lyrics [in ‘What You Waiting For?’], it talks about being a fan of Japan and how if I do good, I get to go back there,” she told the publication.
“I never got to have dancers with No Doubt. I never got to change costumes. I never got to do all of those fun girl things that I always love to do. So I had this idea that I would have a posse of girls — because I never got to hang with girls — and they would be Japanese, Harajuku girls, because those are the girls that I love,” the singer continued.
“Those are my homies. That’s where I would be if I had my dream come true, I could go live there and I could go hang out in Harajuku.”