Cynthia Erivo is deliberately insidious in the most charmingly subversive way. This is not a compliment. It is deeply disturbing and dangerous. She engages in the kind of gaslighting that illustrates a level of manipulation and malevolence that will not save her in the end. Her actions reveal a careful scrutiny and examination of subject that allows for meticulous execution of her actions. It is Sun Tzu Art of War level subversion, precisely because it is designed to feel as though she is merely offering her interpretation of a performance or an opinion. The form and fashion through which this treachery is delivered is never through the open hostility of anger, or outrage, instead it’s always with a calm smile, a bit of a joke, a playful mocking. It is all sugar coating on a poison pill made of derision and designed to erode the dignity and legitimacy that artists have spent decades building through their love of craft and culture.
Perhaps this assertion feels like a furnace blowing outward untowardly, attempting to vanquish an invisible demon instead of warming the house. But to bear witness to this level of deliberate indecency without articulating it, would be to allow it to cause the very conflagration that could destroy what we are seeking to preserve. What is the specific charge that has incited this essay? Cynthia Erivo speaks, performs, and delivers Black Americans and the regional cultures of Black people in America for mass consumption in a manner that is distant and dehumanizing for profit. She employs a language and approach that treats Black people like specimens, separating history, tradition, and culture from art. This dissection is carried on with impunity because she is Black, and because she carries her message with charm, confidence, and authority, as if to make it seem irrefutable.
It’s disturbing. The argument that her works are an homage to Black American culture is implausible. An homage is a sign of respect, it honors the dignity of the artist and the work, the culture it comes from. We are bearing witness to parody for profit.
It’s not because she’s British or British adjacent. Corinne Bailey Rae and Elemine are both Black Brits that sing Black American music. The distinction is that they honor the history in their stylistic approach to the music and in how they speak about past and current artists. They emulate and blend certain aspects of the music but strive to respect both the artists and their culture, acknowledging the interconnectedness of these things as foundations for their art.
And so what gives? What is is that makes this type of insidious behavior possible and so difficult to identify as offensive? It takes the right combination of means, motive, and opportunity while maintaining a level of affability that keeps audiences interested.
Means: Erivo is highly intelligent and a well trained performer versed in theater and music. She is a student of the greats and openly professes to have studied the techniques of greats like Arthea Franklin and Roberta Flack for singing. She has experience on Broadway, in film and television. The tools to educate and immerse herself in the history of Black American culture are there and have been there. She played Aretha Franklin in Genius, she was literally ensconced in a portrayal of the Black church, Southern culture, the evolution of R&B, jazz, and so much more. Her performance reflected a deep character study of who Ms. Franklin was as an artist and virtuoso.
Motive: If Erivo is interesting, if she is singular, and “different” then she is more commercially attractive, accessible, and viable professionally, because she caters to a certain comfortability bias. She positions herself as distinct from Black Americans, from the culture, all while speaking about it, referencing and reflecting on it, in a manner that’s clear and easy to understand. She opines in a merrily relatable way that facilitates the degradation of legitimacy by not acknowledging the hard work, the efforts, and the obstacles that come with building culture especially in America.
Opportunity: Erivo is frequently in front of the camera, promoting her projects. She participates in interviews and digs into the dialogue offered by interviewers and supposed intrepids. The questions are offered under the guise of seeking opinion and she responds in kind, playing a carefully constructed game designed to keep people comfortable. All the while her words undermine the history, legacy, and contributions that have been the foundation for so many Black American artists. Evidence? Look at her comments about Sisqo and the Thong Song, she mocks a praise break, but if he was influenced by the Black Church, should that not be reflected in his work?
So why call it insidious? Aside from the litany of offensive comments and memes, there was the concert series she gave around the United States this past summer. I attended the show on Saturday, June 21, 2025 at the Mann Center, in Philadelphia’s Fairmount Park. The show featured the Philadelphia Orchestra, and Erivo performing not works of her own, but songs from singers like Nina Simone, Prince, and Roberta Flack. She sang the songs in the style that adhered to the form of the studio recorded versions, making the music familiar to the audience, but the emotion was an exercise in cognitive dissonance. Why was she doing pirouettes, plies, and leaping about while singing songs about slavery? How does it serve the art to disconnect the essence of the music, the emotion and feeling, while using other people’s works?
Cynthia Erivo’s style is a prime example of why people are so okay with AI in the arts. Once you start stripping the soul, the emotion, out of performing and normalize trivializing the contribution of culture, tradition, and history within performance moving to machines isn’t that far off. It trains and conditions the audiences to seek shallow entertainment rather than grappling with depth. Disconnecting art from emotion and peddling it for mass appeal is an act of cannibalism. Perhaps the hope is that she consumes enough or lasts long enough to make her fame and fortune before machines replace her, but having deliberately forged this path it seems unlikely.
Music is meant to touch people’s minds and hearts. If singing is a way to connect to people’s humanity, then artists have a duty to tap into the emotion to enable, enhance, and/or encourage that conversation. Technical mastery is insufficient. It’s boring and pedantic at best, disrespectful and destructive at worst. The worst part of it is that most people won’t realize what went wrong, they just shrug and say ‘good show.’ Over time, it lulls people into disengaging from art and their own humanity. Great music, like the songs she chose to sing, requires an emotional vulnerability and humility that is as powerful as it is dangerous because it pushes people to confront the darkness and the light.
Any portrayal that is deliberate in diminishing that affect, is wicked.
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