Justin Timberlake Accused of Cultural Appropriation

Justin Timberlake's name is back in the news after he released new music—but now he's being accused of cultural appropriation.

The 42-year-old appeared on Saturday Night Live over the weekend to promote his new single, Selfish, and his upcoming album Everything I Thought I Was, to be released on March 15. The song shot straight to No. 1 on iTunes U.S., with Timberlake announcing a world tour on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.

On Saturday night, the pop singer performed the song on the comedy sketch show and also debuted a new track called Sanctified with rapper Tobe Nwigwe. Timberlake had premiered a snippet of the song during an ESPN ad earlier in the week, before performing the song for the first time in full on SNL.

The performance included a full band and backup dancers and the song reached a gospel-rock climax, which some people are calling cultural appropriation.

Doctor Jon Paul—who goes by they/them pronouns—shared a snippet of the performance to their X account (formerly Twitter) and wrote in the caption: "When all else fails, appropriate Black culture!"

Their post started a heated debate online, with some people agreeing with the statement and others taking the chance to support Timberlake.

Newsweek contacted a representative for Timberlake for comment via email on Thursday.

"He's done this his entire career. But now he looks like someones uncle who find himself on the wrong stage," one person commented.

"It's been his game plan since the late 90s why stop now??? The way he gets called out and doesn't stop disgusts me," said another.

"Of course after Britney's book suddenly he turned his life over to the lord. They always get religious outta nowhere when they've been trying it," someone else said, referencing Britney Spears' memoir The Woman In Me, in which Timberlake is mentioned numerous times.

A fourth added: "He's good at appropriating! He's done it all his career!"

However, others said Timberlake was simply going back to his roots, as he grew up in a Baptist church.

"what a REACH. this is JUSTIN TIMBERLAKE from MEMPHIS TENNESSEE," one X user posted.

"yall gotta learn the difference between appropriation and appreciation. this is the same Justin Timberlake that grew up in a Baptist church and has been singing rnb basically his whole life. there are clips from the MMC. this is a tired narrative come up with something else pls," said another.

"This isn't an 'all else fails' moment. This is how his music always sounded, even going back to his boyband days. His producer for some of his most successful solo songs was literally Timberland. The fact his new song is R&B influenced isn't surprising," a third person wrote.

"Music is universal. Stop gatekeeping genres and just enjoy it," someone else added.

This isn't the first time that Timberlake has been accused of cultural appropriation. In 2016, the award-winning singer posted to X after Grey's Anatomy actor Jesse Williams gave his acceptance speech at the BET Awards, in which he dedicated the award to civil rights organizers and activists around the county.

Timberlake took to X to share how inspired he was, but fellow X user Ernest Owens took the opportunity to call out the singer.

Owens said: "So does this mean you're going to stop appropriating our music and culture? And apologize to Janet too." That was in reference to Timberlake flashing Janet Jackon's nipple to the audience during their 2004 Super Bowl performance.

Timberlake responded in a since-deleted tweet: "Oh, you sweet soul. The more you realize that we are the same, the more we can have a conversation. Bye."

"If one cannot see the condescending tone in this tweet, you're basically missing the larger issues altogether," Owens said.

Timberlake's response resulted in backlash from people online and he later apologized for his reaction in a series of posts.

"I feel misunderstood. I responded to a specific tweet that wasn't meant to be a general response. I shouldn't have responded anyway," he said.

"I forget this forum sometimes. I was truly inspired by @iJesseWilliams speech because I really do feel that we are all one, a human race."

He added: "I apologize to anyone that felt I was out of turn. I have nothing but LOVE FOR YOU AND ALL OF US."

In Spears' memoir, released in October, The Woman in Me, she said Timberlake and his band members in NSYNC were "white boys" who loved "hip-hop" and "hung out with Black artists. Sometimes, I thought they tried too hard to fit in."

Spears also recalled a moment Timberlake used a blaccent—an accent that approximates African American Vernacular English (AAVE)—during a conversation between himself and R&B singer Ginuwine.

"Oh yeah, fo shiz, fo shiz! Ginuwine! What's up, homie?" Spears records Timberlake as saying. This line was later read aloud by actor Michelle Williams for the audiobook of the said memoir.