Mariah the Scientist Addresses Critics Who Credit Her Success to Colorism (EXCLUSIVE)
Aug. 21 2023, Published 12:08 p.m. ET
The age-old, played-out light-skinned vs dark-skinned debate is a direct result of global systemic racism that has had the Black community in a chokehold for decades. No one’s exempt from being caught up in the rapture of colorism — consciously or unconsciously — including celebrities like “Spread Thin” singer Mariah the Scientist.
She dropped her debut EP, To Die For, on SoundCloud in 2018. In the years that followed, she amassed a cult following who credit the singer for reinventing R&B. But, many critics of the singer have questioned her rise to fame and credit her skin tone for her success.
The Smirnoff Women in Music performer sat down for a one-on-one interview with Distractify and addressed those claims.
Mariah the Scientist addresses colorism claims: “I'm no stranger to this concept.”
Mariah makes music for lovers. The Atlanta native has made a career out of giving us all the feels. That said, she’s encountered her fair share of haters. The singer was born in the South — home of the infamous brown paper bag test — so she isn’t oblivious to her privilege. However, there were some things Mariah wanted to get off her chest.
“I feel like colorism is a really touchy subject, and it is a really sensitive subject,” the singer told us. “I'm no stranger to this concept.”
While she agrees that having a racially ambiguous appearance may have somewhat contributed to the trajectory of her career, she asks that her critics be less judgmental and let her music speak for itself.
“Do I feel like colorism plays a part in anything? Or do I feel like colorism has played a part in anything I have done? I'm sure that at some point, it probably has,” the singer said candidly. “Do I feel like that piece of information should discredit the work that I do? No, I do not.”
She added: “I just wish that people would be more willing to accept the art at its most basic level rather than to consistently throw that at me.”
“I'm a Black woman, which a lot of people, I guess, don't know,” Mariah the Scientist tells us.
If you had any questions about Mariah the Scientist’s ethnicity, she set the record straight in her interview with Distractify. Speculations on social media assert that Mariah isn’t really for the culture. But she shut those claims down.
“I'm a Black woman, which a lot of people, I guess, don't know, you know, because of my appearance, and I can respect that,” she shared.
“[But] they don't know me, they don't know what my parents look like, they don't know where I come from. They don't even know my nationality or my ethnicity. They don't know,” the singer added. “It's just assumptions.”
And you know what they say about assumptions, right? Most of the time they’re wrong as hell.
