Black P!nk is Just White Eve: How I Was Gaslit Into Thinking P!nk Was A Light-Skinned Black Woman
10/27/2023
Oh the 2000’s… When the sky was blue, Wendy’s was yellow, and P!nk was… black? Well, no. She wasn’t. But plenty of people thought she was!
I know I certainly thought she was, or at least partially. I’m black and I have family members about her complexion, so it wasn’t hard to believe. I looked at this white woman and said to myself “Yeah she look like my cousins and nem” thinking about the more melanin-deficient folks in my family. I mean she was on BET arguing with black boyfriends and rockin’ the hype hair pixie cut that could’ve been a 27 piece weave. How the hell would I know? Her name, Alecia, didn’t throw me off either.
Yes, she looks white but so does Halsey who is half-white, half-black biracial and genetics are truly random. It wasn’t until we got dial-up internet, and I discovered Wikipedia, that I realized she was no blacker than Britney Spears. How could I be duped this way? Along with so many others? Is this a case of the Mandela Effect or just the good old-fashioned music industry branding of days past?
As a child, race was a concept I knew of, but didn’t understand with any level of sophistication. This woman had black and brown onscreen lovers, was being played on Black Entertainment TV, and the production of her songs “Most Girls” “There You Go” and “You Make Me Sick” sounded more similar to Destiny’s Child than the stylings of Jessica Simpson. She was signed to LaFace Records, and even at 6 years old I noticed only black artists seemed to have this written on their music video credits. The topics of her songs were different than those of other white women pop singers of the time. P!nk was not here to pine over unrequited love interests or do the “sexy baby” routine. She was out here telling these men they weren’t shit and singing about how she wasn’t one to play with.
Pink “There You Go” (2000)
Her baggy pants, fur jackets, full-length leather coats, and cropped cut were all styles that were much more popular with black singers at the time. Many of her fashion choices were considered “edgy” and, as has been discussed repeatedly, when white artists want to give their brand some edge, they often turn to appropriating other cultures - Black American culture in particular. See also - Miley Cyrus, Christina Aguilera, and Gwen Stefani.
I’ve spent a lot of time pondering the short-lived career of Black P!nk and here are some of my observations and theories on the matter.
P!nk Was a Part of the “Blonde Response”
The “Blonde Response” is what I call the early 2000’s phenomenon of there being one blonde singer after the next, each one being a response to the last. We had Britney Spears, who was the girl next door. Christina Aguilera, the slut. Jessica Simpson, the chaste Christian bombshell. Not every blonde stood the test of time. The list goes on. The music industry was obsessed with white blondes and the objectification of women was rampant. They all filled a specific niche. A specific fantasy.
This phenomenon was driven by the industry’s need to always be injecting something fresh and new into the zeitgeist, while also playing to convention. When the industry needed a new girl, a departure from the conventional eye candy with sugar-sweet lyrics, P!nk entered the ring.
A blonde underneath her iconic hot-pink dye job, she was the tough girl. The cool chick who rode motorcycles, commanded respect and wasn’t afraid to slap up men and women alike. Many of her earliest tracks are anthems of independence. Shorty had a job, shorty had a car, and shorty could pay her own rent. She did not need no G to take care of her.
This schtick along with her hot pink hair was enough to pique the interests of audiences who were growing weary of industry-planted copy-paste white girls. In May of 2000, Chuck Campbell of the Daily News newspaper even wrote of the singer “Pink just meets the standards for breakout success…if she decided to become blonde forget it.”
Black P!nk Was Still Featured on Mizundastood
A lot of people cite the singer’s sophomore album Mizundastood as being the end of black P!nk. This new album had more of a rock-inspired feel, as opposed to her debut album,Can’t Take Me Home which was heavily inspired by Hip-Hop and R&B. Can’t Take Me Home was a commercial hit and went double platinum in the US, Australia, and Canada. Still, critical reviews of the album were mixed at best, and the main criticism? She sounded too similar to popular black music acts of the time such as Destiny’s Child and TLC.
In addition to this, P!nk herself did not seem to enjoy the direction her career was taking. She often expressed disdain for her first album, the way she was marketed, and the very genre that launched her career. The singer is quoted as saying “There was no blood, sweat or tears on my first album... and no emotional exchange between me and the musicians. R&B is on a conveyor belt.”
Mizundastood, stepped into a more “eclectic sound” in truth, pulling from many different genres, but this pivot towards rock n roll ( a genre founded by black artists, which later became coopted by and associated with whiteness) specifically was more than musical, her image was pivoting too. She had already carved out her niche as the tough girl, and hip-hop just wasn’t working out for her. A rocker image maintained this element of her branding - the aesthetic of rebellion, edginess, and irreverence. This was goodbye to Black P!nk…
NOT! Um hello, can we talk about Mizundastood being P!nk’s Mary J Blige era? The idea to write this blog post came to me one night after taking a THC gummy and having a revelation. P!nk is Mary J Blige for white people. Her haircut and personal style were quite similar, though not identical, to Mary’s at the time and she was also cranking out music that was so similar in feel that it’s hard not to draw parallels.
Get the Party Started is P!nk’s Family Affair. Family Portrait is her No More Drama. Whether you needed an uptempo bop that would get even your bougiest auntie to bust a move, or you were just going through it and needed a song blast on your radio to cover up the sound of you crying in the shower, these were the go-to girls.
This is no coincidence either. P!nk was discovered singing at an open mic in a Phillidelphia nightclub. And what was she singing you ask? The sweet stylings of one Mary J Blige. Her love for Mary’s music is well-documented and the singer often credits her as an inspiration so this is hardly news. Only a correlation that the death of Black Pink was a slow one
Mary’s role in inspiring Black P!nk is no secret, but it’s time to address the title of this blog. It’s time to say the things we don’t dare to say out loud.
Black Pink Is Just White Eve
Ah yes, the forbidden pair of the early aughts. How could this have gone over my head? Black P!nk is white Eve, y’all. Who else was out here smacking dudes up? EVE. Who else was the cool chick on a motorcycle in her videos? EVE. Who else was out here telling these men they weren’t shit and that she was not the one to play with? You get the picture.
Eve’s discography also has a lot of danceable hits like Blow Ya Mind and Who’s That Girl. She too exhibits incredible range and depth in her music, with her song Love is Blind being an excellent example of the rapper's grit and profundity
On a surface level the comparisons are undeniable. If you look at the photo set just above this text and squint hard enough you might think these were pictures of the same woman in her summer and winter foundation shades, respectively.
From the fiery pink and red locks to the jackets, tank tops, and chains I cannot believe I did not see this earlier. P!nk is Eve’s son - just look at cornrows, Maury!
But the similarities aren’t only aesthetic. They were both tomboyish outliers hailing from Pennsylvania, who were known for their edgy personalities. P!nk has been known for taking jabs at her contemporaries for being vapid and vain. This is a theme in her career that extends beyond the scope of time addressed in this article, with her notorious song and video Stupid Girls being released on her fourth studio album I’m Not Dead. It was not uncommon for the singer to pick on other artists. Her performance of Most Girls at the 2000 AMA Awards features an opening skit that is generally critical of other women, painting them as shallow and boy-obsessed. The skit features 3 actresses who are clearly supposed to be Christina Aguilera, Britney Spears, and Jessica Simpson who say they want to be “more hardcore” or in other words, more like P!nk. There are many more instances of this sort of behavior from the singer early in her career including onstage antics with a blow up doll effigy of another female pop star that I won’t dive into here. One could hardly call these fights fair. These were often one-sided attempts at “tough girl behavior” that really just seemed like bullying.
Eve was also not afraid to dish it out to her contemporaries in the late 90’s and 00’s, most notably Foxy Brown and Lil Kim. Her criticisms of both women were very similar to the ones P!nk would make of fellow female pop stars. Both cited a lack of talent and a preoccupation with appearances as their main gripes.
“Some of y'all ain't writing well, too concerned with fashion
None of you ain't Giselle, cat walk and imagine” - Eve, Blow Ya Mind
The beefs between Eve, Foxy, and Lil Kim were fair fights as they were mutual in nature. Everybody got their licks in and we, the listeners, got some great diss tracks as a result. P!nk, on the other hand, was taking shots at women who had not disrespected her and who she knew would not swing back. Despite having very similar shticks, P!nk didn’t have the same steelo.
I’m not saying P!nk isn’t a tough girl, and I’m certainly not saying she isn’t talented or unique - she is. I’m saying the “Black P!nk” era was never meant to last, because it simply wasn’t her. I can see where P!nk and Eve may just genuinely have similar fashion tastes and demeanors, but the similarities are too on the nose to chalk up to coincidence. Especially because the 2000’s was a time of talent curation. Before the advent of social media, it was pretty much impossible for a relative unknown to skyrocket to stardom without being chosen and subsequently molded by industry moguls. It was also a time when the industry practice of black artists having their art copied by white and non-black artists was a time-honored tradition and it was easier to silence people speaking against it.
P!nk herself has spoken about how her early career did not reflect her as a person or an artist. In her hit single “Don’t Let Me Get Me, she says “LA told me, ‘You'll be a pop star, All you have to change is everything you are.’ Tired of being compared to damn Britney Spears She's so pretty That just ain't me.”
I speculate that P!nk was branded by the industry in a way that followed the blueprint of popular black artists at the time, most notably in my opinion, Eve. I suspect they saw a talented young white artist who had a bit of an edge to her and could really sing. I think music industry tycoons of the time viewed her toughness and her “soulful” voice as somehow antithetical to her whiteness (eyeroll) , and so looked to black singers as figures to model her after. With the constant Britney Spears comparisons it is not hard to imagine maybe she welcomed this for a time before realizing she had to do her own thing.
In my opinion, she’s all the better for it. Can’t Take Me Home has some serious bops on it, and while we can look back at the “Black P!nk era” critically, it was iconic. That said, she did not really come into her own until later in her career. I know my favorite P!nk song, Sober, off her album Funhouse which was released in 08. It’s raw, honest, melodic and really showcases the singer’s maturation personally and musically. She has put out a lot of work since then too, with her most recent album coming out earlier this year.
Eve has enjoyed a very successful career in her own right and is still an active musician, working mostly on features and guest appearances. She diversified her portfolio by breaking into acting and voiceover work. Just last year the rapper presented at the MOBO (Music of Black Origin) Awards.
I love both artists, and this isn’t meant to be a dig at anyone. Just my present thoughts on days past. Feel free to sound off your own opinions and hot takes in the comments.
BYE! XOXO
