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MARIAH CAREY to play southern slave Hattie Pearl in movie "The Butler" (pic inside)
- Thread starter royalan
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Would watch/10
Gully State
Member
How the fuck does dating white guys make Mariah Carey less black? That's some bullshit right there ...Fantasy was released around 1996 which featured One Sweet Day with Boys II Men and Fantasy remix with ODB. That was 17 years ago at this point.
Read post #147. Carey built a career out of being a multiracial woman. Now she wants to make a career being a white looking black woman. I personaly find that a bit dubious. However, from a business perspective, being able to appeal to both minorities and the majority is a very lucrative ability to have in the entertainment industry.
This is evidenced by her obtaining black roles and white roles in films. Quite a powerful ability to have, and I can't think of any other woman in Hollywood who currently has that ability. In any other situation, it would be considered a "whitewash", but since Carey has a small amount of black heritage, she gets to escape that label, and be considered as black as Whoppi Goldberg. You'll never hear me say that Carey isn't a brilliant business woman.
Her target audience doesn't seem to mind, as evidenced from this thread and her passionate defenders. More power to her I guess.
Leona Lewis
Banned
No, she made a career out of being the best pop singer of her generation.
That would be Whitney Houston.
Mariah was good though, but she had the added advantage of looking like a white woman.
She was the "white girl with the black voice."
Don't get me wrong, Carey is a very talented woman. However, we'd be lying to ourselves if we believed her exotic Caucasian appearance didn't help propel her stardom.
Gordon Shumway
Banned
Thanks for this..I knew I wasn't crazy. The idea that the majority of her old vids were with white dudes wasn't matching up. Man..this thread..lol.I remember tons of videos with her and some fine brothers.
Her god Mother is Patti Labelle. Lol.
Whitney's the other best pop singer of that generation.
Just about every interview she did before she married Nick Cannon. Can you find an interview pre-2005 where she said she was just black?
And none of them are black guys.
Singing a duet with a black guy isn't a romantic relationship. Having a black guy fall in front of you isn't indicative of a romantic relationship. Wentworth Miller looks like a white dude. That Miguel video came out this past year, so that's not a surprise. Walking out to a ring isn't indicative of a romantic relationship. That little gif with her dancing in front of those black dudes is from a video that ended with her on a beach with a white dude at the end.
I will freely admit that I've never seen the videos associated with 1, 5/6, and 9. However, I'm willing to bet that 5/6 and 9 are pretty recent.
You do understand that having white-looking women being accepted as "black" women does a lot of damage to black women in the entertainment industry, and in greater society right?
Where did I say that Mariah Carey needs to stop calling herself black? She can call herself whatever she wants. I'm merely pointing out the motivations behind her doing so. Considering that her last album was a massive flop, I'm not surprised she is making moves to capitalize on her multiracial appeal. She's attractive, she's talented, and she has a racial advantage over other celebrities. Kudos to her for utilizing the U.S. system of racial classification to enrich herself.
~Devil Trigger~
In favor of setting Muslim women on fire
Hip Hop and RnB is a Multi-Racial thing???
cuz thats how i thought she build her career. Or did I grow up in the wrong 90s
Bomber Bob
Banned
Scoffield?????????
You thought wrong. Its far deeper than that. Throughout the 80s and 90s, record companies were looking for a white artist who could appeal to white audiences and black audiences utilizing "black" music. After all, Janet Jackson, and Whitney Houston were popular, but they were too black to reach mass (i.e. white suburban and white racist) market appeal. Anyone remember the terrible attempts at creating white rappers like Vanilla Ice, Marky-Mark, and Snow?
Mariah Carey was able to be that white artist, even though she was actually mixed race. She looked white enough and sung black enough to appeal to a larger audience. Carey just happened to be smarter than her record company overseers and let everyone know she was part black so that the black audiences wouldn't shun her music.
So you had white parents feeling comfortable buying music with a white-looking woman on the cover, you had black parents feeling comfortable because Mariah was "black" (via the One Drop rule), and you even had Hispanics buying her music because her dad was Latino or something. That's how she ends up becoming the dominant female artist of the 1990s.
...what are you talking about?
Janet Jackson: 140 million records sold
Whitney Houston: 200 million records sold
Both Janet and Whitney are two of the top selling female artists of all time, and were HUGE crossover artists in their prime. EASILY in the same league as Mariah (around 175 million records sold).
Yes, and Carey eclipsed both of them. Whitney Houston was a superior singer, AND she had a very strong movie career, and Carey still beats her in Album sales. If anyone think Carey sings better than Houston, just check out the "When you believe" video from 1997 where they had a duet. Houston smokes Carey the entire time, its almost embarrassing how superior Houston's vocals are.
In any case, you can look at the rankings here;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_music_artists
and here;
http://wikidumper.blogspot.com/2006/11/best-selling-female-recording-artist.html
Janet Jackson is pretty far down the list.
Tommie Hu$tle
Member
Depends on the Wife of the Master. She could have not been cool with his slave child in the house.
~Devil Trigger~
In favor of setting Muslim women on fire
The notion/concept that white suburb kids only buy white artist have been DEAD for ages. Houston and Janet are counters to your argument lol, they both sell well to anyone.
being a better singer = more sells?
do you pay attention to the music industry at all?
I never said that. I'm saying that there are white people out there who only buy things done by other white people. There are black people out there who only buy things done by other black people. You get someone in there who is white and black at the same time, you get both markets cornered. So while Mr. Whitey might not buy his daughter a Whitney Houston or Janet Jackson CD, he'll buy his daughter a Mariah Carey CD because Mariah Carey looks white (and safe).
Its simple economics.
I've already shown that Carey outsold Houston despite the fact that Houston was the superior singer and entertainer.
Both of those links show Mariah Carey barely edging out Whitney by a few million units sold (232 mill to 220 million). At numbers that high, a difference of a few million is HARDLY enough to say that Mariah was inherently more crossover friendly. They were in the same league, especially at the peak of their careers.
Also, in regards to Janet, when the name of the Top 10 you've placed 6th in is "The Best-Selling Female Recording Artist Ever" I don't think there IS a bottom. If you've placed at all you've made it.
Houston had a significant head start on Carey (when Carey's first album came out, Houston had already been on the scene for the better part of a decade), had a strong film career, AND had the superior voice.
She was still beaten.
I didn't say the bottom. I said she was pretty far down the list.
It's hilarious that people are actually arguing over the fact that appearance plays a role in the entertainment industry.
~Devil Trigger~
In favor of setting Muslim women on fire
its not simple economics,
for the longest time now, data have shown that white "suburb kids" buy "black people" music no problem. Its a large reason why HipHop blew up in the 90s. Parents buy CDs for kids is NOT the norm lol. What fuckin teen in the world rely on their folks to buy music for them?..... and the Music industry knows that.
And its a large reason why your Marky Marks and Snow(though "anything for you is still a classic) didnt work out, White burb kids didnt see them as genuine. The simple economics was white kids buying black music.
Mariah have been doing HipHop n RnB almost from the beginning. She collaborated with HipHop producers and artist for as long as i can remember. She never came off as someone faking it for sales.
Yes looks matter, she's a beautiful light skin woman for NYC that can sing RnB and Hip Hop comfortably and has the geniune "urban swag"(for lack of better term). But she never played the race card for her success, it never came off like that.
Context. Whitney did begin her career earlier but Mariah extended her career a lot longer than Whitney, releasing one of her most critically acclaimed albums as late as 2005 (The Emancipation of Mimi). That album went on to sell around 12 million copies. In 2005, by comparison, Whitney was mostly living pretty quietly and not really concerned with her career.
But in their primes, Whitney was just as able to outsell Mariah. Her debut sold 10 million copies more than Mimi's, for example. And the soundtrack to The Bodyguard (which is basically a Whitney album), is one of the top selling albums of all time.
I'm not implying that race doesn't play a significant role in the entertainment industry, but it didn't make Mariah an inherently more appealing artists that other popular black women at the time. In fact, as others have pointed out in this thread, Mimi's sales SUFFERED when she went urban.
Which is why Eminem is the top selling rapper of all time, beaten only by 2pac who is dead.
Yes, white teens buy black music. However, you get a white artist who does black music well, you're going to eclipse the black artists doing black music because its going to appeal to a wider audience. That's my point.
Because she's very good at marketing herself. She always has been. I even remember her pushing her Latino heritage during the great Latino fad of the late 90s. Her recent transformation into a black woman is the latest marketing ploy. Few can do it better than she can.
I agree with everything you said above, and in their prime, I would rate Houston as the superior entertainer. So what allowed Carey to sell so much better than Houston in the end? I know that Houston stalled out in the early 2000s, but so did Carey via Glitter bombing horrendously.
I can understand Houston being such a dominant force in music. She had an incredible voice, she was a good actress, her movies did pretty well, she was attractive,etc. What about Mariah Carey though? Outside of her great voice, what else is there that separates her from any other artist out there? What allows her to be picked out of a crowd?
Could it be her exotic appearance?
In the end, my earlier point still stands; Carey used her multiracial heritage and her excellent vocal talents to separate her from the pack. She's going to do the same thing again in the film industry, if given the opportunity to.
If I were an African American actress with strong black features, I'd be very afraid of the precedent that Carey is trying to set. If she can play a black field slave, she can play anything requiring a black actress.
My mom doesn't seem to have a problem with it. Now she obviously wasn't around in slave times and isn't a scholar on this stuff but she did spend half her life picking cotton on sharecropper fields and seems to talk about this stuff as if it's family history or something. From this she seems to think "high yellow" slaves did indeed work on fields owned by their fathers.
I just explained that.
Mariah outsold Whitney in the end because, and ONLY because, Whitney put her career on the back burner. Whereas around the time Whitney started enjoying family life, Mariah had a second renaissance and put out albums that sold millions of copies.
But they were very much contemporaries when they were both in their primes. Mariah wasn't vastly outselling Whitney at all.
Also, I wouldn't relegate Mariah to having just an ordinary singing voice, if I were you. Mariah Carey in her prime wasn't just a "good singer." She was, and still is, considered to be one of the most superior vocalists in Pop history, with exemplary tone, power, versatility, and ability. She was every bit Whitney's vocal rival.
In the end, THAT'S why Mariah Carey soared to the top. Imean, let's not pretend there weren't other light skinned singers trying it around that time. Anybody remember Chante Moore? Of course not.
Yeah, no.
These are Whitney's reported album sales in her prime (1986 - 1994, plus future catalog sales):
Whitney Houston: 25 million
Whitney: 20 million
I'm Your Baby Tonight: 12 million
The Bodyguard Original Soundtrack Album: 47 million
Mariah, by way of comparison:
Mariah Carey: 15 million
Emotions: 9 million
MTV Unplugged: 3 million
Merry Christmas: 12 million
Music Box: 32 million (reported; confirmed is closer to ~25 million)
Daydream: 27 million (reported; confirmed is closer to ~20 million)
In the first six - eight years of their careers, they each sold about 100 million albums, and Whitney did it across fewer albums. The only reason Mariah has better album sales than Whitney is because Whitney took a hiatus from studio releases after The Bodyguard; she waited another four years before The Preacher's Wife (which was never going to have huge commercial appeal but still managed six million albums), and six years before she came out with her next studio release, which sold just as well as the Mariah album that came out the year before (Butterfly also sold 12 million copies).
Whitney was bigger than Mariah at their respective peaks. Mariah has better overall sales because her career was more consistent and she had more releases. Their overall album sale are something like 170 to 200 million, even with Whitney's fewer releases and shorter active career.
Mariah has a naturally smaller voice than Whitney. It doesn't make her a worse singer. And I thought they compared favorably when they appeared together on Oprah when singing their new songs. They were both nowhere near their best, though.
Whitney stalled out in the early to mid 90s, and had a couple of one-off minor successes before falling off the radar again.
She's one of the two most talented vocalists around, possessed an ear for writing radio friendly songs, had intense support from her label, and was attractive?
OldAsUrSock
Banned
LOL IKR? I dont get why people seem to think that, but Whitney does sing better.
Mariah Carey wasn't light skinned. She looked like a white woman. Chante Moore did not.
I wouldn't say that Houston took a hiatus. She just rode The Bodyguard's success for 4 years. She did world tours and starred in films. She also did Waiting to Exhale and the Preacher's Wife back to back.
According to the link I posted, and other top lists, Carey edges Houston out in total album sales.
That's fine to have that opinion. I just think Houston is the better singer. She has quite a bit more range, though I don't have a problem with Carey's voice in general. Personally, Carey's songs tend to start blending together after awhile. Houston's music has a bit more staying power, and her songs are quite a bit more diversified (via Houston's superior range). I mean, I will always love you was on the radio for years. Carey's songs are very similar to each other, and a lot more disposable. I'm not surprised her last album tanked. Its the same bubble gum shit we've heard for years. At least Whitney's decline was from cocaine cocktails. Carey's decline is simply because her talent well has finally started to dry up.
I disagree. Waiting to Exhale was pretty popular in 1995, and the Preacher's Wife did well in 1996. She released My love is your love in 1998, and had some great singles from that album. I don't think that's much of a fall off. I remember Waiting to Exhale everywhere in the mid 90s. Especially Exhale and Count on Me. Damn, those songs were everywhere.
Fair enough. I just don't think she would have been nearly as popular she became if it wasn't for her appearance.
Sho_Nuff82
Member
Saw the trailer for this yesterday before MoS, she isn't even mentioned or shown, probably a super minor role/cameo.
Just because Mariah "looks" white doesn't mean she's 100 percent white. :/ You contradict yourself so many times It's not worth debating anything with you. You can have your own opinion even when it's wrong.
……forgetit
Member
Don't see what's so funny about this? There were Slaves that looked almost completely white due to "One Drop"
……forgetit
Member
Seriously What the heck people? I'm from the Deep South my grandfather's dad was this light and he was a field slave, it usually didn't matter what they looked like if you were even a little black you could be a field slave.
She took a hiatus from major studio releases; I didn't mean that her career went on hiatus. The Preacher's Wife was a one-off gospel album that was really successful for that genre simply because it was Whitney. Waiting to Exhale was an ensemble album; her only single was successful (went #1 for a week before Mariah knocked her off; stayed at #2 for something like 11 or 12 weeks after that), but compared to her first eight years (four albums, ~100 million album sales alone, 10-ish #1 hits), her next eight (2 albums, <20 million album sales, 1 #1 hit, etc.) years were not nearly as active or succesful. This happens to lots of artists, including Mariah.
I wasn't disagreeing with you; I was contextualizing it because simply saying, 'Mariah sold more' doesn't present a complete picture.
I assume you mean something different than "The notes that they can hit" when you say vocal range, because that's precisely backwards. Mariah has a significantly larger range than Whitney does. If by "range" you mean their musical versatility, they are more or less equal. There are certain objective aspects in which either is better; judged holistically they are equal.
I do agree that Whitney has the better instrument, just due to the larger sound and more beautiful tone, but that's subjective.
They were both successful, going #1 and #8, and I Believe In You and Me at #4, but that is insignificant compared to what came before
See You Next Wednesday
Banned
I was thinking of this when I saw this thread.
This. Most especially in the beginning of her career with her curly hair. I miss that Mariah and not this artificial, overly processed Mariah. Ugghh...
grandjedi6
Master of the Google Search
Wait, whats the problem now? Mariah Carey probably would have been a slave back then due to her African American father.
Jill Scott, Erykah Badu, and India Arie are not remotely as talented as Mariah Carey?
Oooooh good lawd.
Sold. When was the last time Janet had a hit? No, slapping her niece doesn't count.
Yeah. Mariah Carey's voice may be impressive and all, but I'm not sure I'd even consider her an artist. Her singing is pretty, but... empty. And her material seems to get worse over time.
omg
They...aren't. That isn't even an opinion.
Leona Lewis
Banned
Sorry, but this is an indefensible position.
Just sit back and listen.
(and watch the whistle register too...they're both great vocal analyses)
I love how everyone assumes her super curly locks were any more natural than her pin-straight hair. Her early curls were distinct, but that perm style was something even White singers recreated. If anything, her natural texture is somewhere in between.
Clearly, this is nothing like the early 90s Mariah hair people wrongly assume was natural just because it's the hairstyle with which she started her career:
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