I think this issue goes further musically than the ethics and politics of performing in a style made popular by third-world performers.

I recently had some of the same misgivings about a country song I'd written. My diction and sentence song are those of an urban, educated, Jewish, New Yorker. The song was written for a voice with a Virginia accent: that of a friend.

The problem is those aren't my natural vowel sounds, cadences, or sentence song. I'm concerned that the words sound phony coming out of my mouth with different nuances of pronunciation and inflection. I don't want to sound 'wrong' the way that most Anglo/European Americans sound when they perform rap music. Most are just ridiculous.

Going back to Morwen's original post, the question for me is whether he can sound 'real' either by immersing himself in West Indian culture until he has that voice (try twenty years) or whether he can find a way to sing that music without pretending to be West Indian. The latter solution is a lot more practical and would probably result in something like ska -- a Chinese-Australian Calypso hybrid as authentic as he can be to himself.

Best wishes.

-- Etan Ben-Ami