DaniLeigh, an R&B singer and rapper, shared a snippet of her song on Jan. 21 to Instagram titled “Yellow Bone” that caused immediate online controversy when it seemed that her lyrics embodied colorist sentiments.
In the snippet, which has since been deleted, she sings, “Yellow bone that’s what he want,” allegedly referring to her boyfriend, North Carolina rapper DaBaby.
According to the September 2010 article “Color Names and Color Notations: A Contemporary Examination of the Language and Attitudes of Skin Color Among Young Black Women” yellow bone is a term that refers to individuals who are light-skinned.
This particular incident speaks to the larger issue of colorism in today’s society.
In response to pushback on her song, DaniLeigh responded in an Instagram video that has also since been deleted.
“Why can’t I make a song for my light skin baddies?” she said. “Why y’all think I’m hating on other colors when there are millions of songs speaking on all types, why are y’all so sensitive and
take it personal?”
Assistant professor of African American Studies Jalylah Burrell, said individuals associated with lightness and loose-textured hair generally have positive connotations and those associated with deep brown tones and dynamically coiled hair are generally regarded more negatively.
“Within the African American community, like other communities of color, there is clarity on proximity to whiteness,” Burrell said in an email. “In this case light skin and straighter hair textures privileges some members of the community in both interraacial and intraracial spaces.”
Burrell also said colorism continues to be frequently discussed in media and communities all around the world.
“There are a host of books and articles on colorism in East Asia, South Asia, Central and South America, it has been studied in many other places subject to dreadful and violence of European imperialism,” Burell said.
As to the audience’s response to DaniLeigh, Burrell said it reflects the frustration of those whose objections to celebrations of white beauty standards are frequently dismissed.
Human resources senior Adaolisa Okafor said she enjoys some of DaniLeigh’s music but believes the song is inappropriate because it is blatantly colorist.
“It’s one thing to be proud of your skin tone but it’s another thing to act like you’re better than someone just because you’re
light-skinned,” Okafor said in an email.
While she will continue listening to DaniLeigh’s music, Okafor said she thought it was strange because DaniLeigh is not Black and “light-skin is a term used for lighter-skinned Black people but rather she is Afro-Latina being from the Dominican Republic.
DaniLeigh further responded to the backlash on Twitter by saying “I am not a colorist. I am not a racist. I date a whole chocolate man. I have beautifuldark-skinned friends.”
To this Burrell said that if you perpetuate colorism, you are a colorist.
“Plenty of racist people date interracially and plenty of colorist people have dark-skinned friends, they may even have dark-skinned partners. A lever of imperialism, white-supremacy infects representation and relationships throughout the world, in part, through enforcing of white beauty standards,” Burrell said.
Okafor said the singer’s response was tone deaf considering how often women face colorism in the media and music industry.
This is not the first time colorism has been expressed in music however, it usually doesn’t receive as much negative attention when it’s perpetrated in lyrics from male artists.
An example of this is in DaBaby’s verse on the remix of Jack Harlow’s song “What’s Poppin” where he raps the lyrics,“My bitch is mellow yellow like a soda.”
When it comes to differences between men and women expressing colorist statements in songs, Okafor said she thinks DaniLeigh is getting more hate because she is an Afro-Latina woman.
“If she were a fully black man, it probably wouldn’t have been a big deal,”Okafor said.
Mikomi Kaelani, founder of Stories for Solidarity, a local social justice and equity organization shared the same belief as Okafor. She said it was unfitting the way she used the term “yellow bone” as a way to imply she’s better than the alternative.
“In society, yellow bone diaspora are at the top of the social hierarchy because they are closest to whiteness in race, so to say something like that so ignorantly reinforces the colorist rhetoric,” she said.
Kaelani said being light-skinned comes with a social responsibility to acknowledge privilege but that doesn’t mean denouncing one’s Blackness and that to honor it is to make sure all skin shades get the same appreciation and celebration.
“The power lies within the words and there is no escaping the white beauty standards that produce colorism,” she said.
