Reminder as you toot this horn that e.g. jazz doesn't exist without the European classical tradition, and Irish ballads heavily influenced the development of blues. Influence is always a two-way street, and while yes absolutely early & midcentury black artists/acts didn't get the recognition they deserved, 20th century rock/pop is the product of a really complex series of hybridizations, and not the simple "white popularizers profiting off black innovators" dynamic often presented.
Something I personally experienced after moving to Greenville, SC (where people ironically had the nerve to talk shit about me being from Kentucky) - I got so much shit about being into rap (or as some called it, "n***** music") then I walk into school one day and the same people that gave me so much shit are now suddenly playing The Beastie Boys.
I'm like, you gotta be f*cking kidding me.
And there was also still other f*cked up shit going on at the time - this is the 80s we're talking about so not just "early-midcentury" black artists.
For example, early MTV refused to play video by black artists until the record companies started threatening to pull all of their music - It's also interesting that MTV were making their money after the second british "new wave" of popular white musicians - as if there wasn't already enough good music to go around.
And this is soon after the disco backlash which was primarily white rock fans throwing a fit over black, female and "queer" music eclipsing rock music which was now white.
