“The dark-skinned female singer still is having a hard time in the music business.” These are the words of “Welcome to Atlanta” rapper Jermaine Dupri, aired during a 2018 appearance on “The Breakfast Club.” Dupri’s sentiments are backed by The Guardian, which observed that light-skin favoritism is closely related to topping charts.
In response to Dupri’s remarks, Kelly Rowland took to BuzzFeed to celebrate dark-skinned women, including herself, who beat all odds to become big names in the music industry. “I think that things will continue to get better. Whitney Houston did it: a chocolate girl. Jody Watley did it: chocolate girl. I did it, and I’m still not done,” she said.
Not that Rowland hasn’t experienced discrimination on the basis of her color. As she recalled in an interview with Tan France for the BBC, “The first time I had a little boo friend, actually his grandmother compared me to the color of a paper bag and said I was too dark chocolate for him, and he couldn’t date me.” That broke her spirit and shaped her idea of beauty for some time, and she remembered wanting to look like Mariah Carey. Regarding her experiences with colorism in her professional life, she shared, “In the entertainment business, it manifested itself in constant comparisons.” In 2013, Rowland told CNikky.com (via HuffPost) that Tina Knowles-Lawson helped her shake these insecurities and taught her to love her skin.
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