Mariah Carey sat down for an interview with Questlove and spoke on the importance of being seen as a Black woman. Carey appeared on the podcast to plug her memoir, “The Meaning of Mariah Carey.”
The songstress said that because she was so light-skinned when she said that she was Black, people would look at her and be confused, so she began explaining that her father was Black and her mother was Irish to avoid confusion.
She also spoke out on Black folks claiming that she has only recently embraced her Blackness. Carey said she has always embraced her Blackness, despite what others thought.
“There was never a non-embracing, she said. “What did you expect me to do? I can’t tattoo it on my forehead,” said Carey.
The “Vision Of Love” singer said she has always claimed her Blackness. She said she wore her naturally curly hair and never tried to alter her appearance to look more white.
However, because she appeared white, people were often confused when Carey would say she was Black. Carey got into the habit of saying she was Black and mixed to avoid confusion. The singer explained during an interview back in 2020.
“That was the way that people were kept, Black people were kept captive by having this rule of if you even have one drop of Black blood, and this is a very American thing, then you are considered Black, so when me saying my father’s Black, my mother’s Irish, to me that’s just explaining because they are confused by the ambiguity of how I look and have always looked.”
“So to me that was already saying I’m Black because I said my father’s Black, that makes you Black, but to be Black and mixed and ambiguous looking is a very interesting road, particularly when you’re in the industry.”
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Appearing on the 2005 cover of ESSENCE was important to Carey to make a statement, but there were also concerns about privilege. She met the former editor of the magazine and collaborator of her memoir, Michaela Angela Davis while shooting the cover.
“Michaela Angela Davis is a brilliant writer and we first met when I did my first and only ESSENCE magazine cover, which in and of myself just to make that happen at that point because there were so many ‘issues’ with my image and how Black women would perceive me and could it happen and is this going to happen and whatever. And it was a really important thing for it to happen for me because being Black and of mixed race, there’s always been this, you know, this stigma that white people have but then there’s this thing where lightness is perceived as privilege.”
She went on to say that when she was in white neighborhoods, she didn’t appear Black enough for them to listen when she told them something was offensive. When Carey was in Black communities, she was often mistaken for white.
Carey conceded that there were questions about how to market her at the beginning of her career due to her looks.
“There’s a thing where there’s a constant theme with being a woman in a male-dominated industry. Then I was a woman of color with all this ambiguity and I had people deciding how they’re going to market me at the time.”
Part two of Questlove’s interview with Mariah Carey streams on Jan. 15 on Questlove Supreme.
