Top Blackface Entertainers
by Sabrina Dawkins
Drake wears blackface.
Blackness is a commodity,
bought and sold brown skin
but not on auction blocks—
on flat TV screens,
a bought image
of sprayed-on blackness,
complete with mimicked
slang exaggerated
to mock the ignorance
of a people innocently
admiring live caricatures.
And Eminem’s Elvis verse
told you why they do black music.
I see Lil Wayne faking a guitar solo
for black girls who want a thug
and bad Auto-Tune.
Caricatures in the spotlight
whose only talent seems to be
making the n-word rhyme with other words
on top of someone else’s beat.
Blackface on tan, pale, and brown skin.
They weren’t being genuine.
Satan gave them a mission
to gather souls,
flashing you devil horns and 666
when you weren’t looking.
But take a chance, gamble,
consume their popular lyrics,
6ix9ine.
Lil Wayne’s lollipop was a die.