Art and Popular Culture
The terminology and its cultural aspects were explored in Dael Orlandersmith's play Yellowman, a 2002 Pulitzer Prize Finalist in drama. The play depicts a dark-skinned girl whose own mother "inadvertently teaches her the pain of rejection and the importance of being accepted by the 'high yellow' boys." One reviewer described the term as having "the inherent, unwieldy power to incite black Americans with such intense divisiveness and fervor" as few others.
The phrase survives in folk songs such as "The Yellow Rose of Texas," which originally referred to Emily West Morgan, a "mulatto" indentured servant apocryphally associated with the Battle of San Jacinto. Blind Willie McTell's song "Lord, Send Me an Angel" has its protagonist forced to choose between three women, described as "Atlanta yellow," "Macon brown," and a "Statesboro blackskin". Bessie Smith's song "I've Got What It Takes", by Clarence Williams, refers to "a slick high yeller" boyfriend who "turned real pale" when she wouldn't wait for him to get out of jail.
As recently as 2004, white R&B singer-songwriter Teena Marie released a song titled "High Yellow Girl," said to be about her daughter Alia Rose, who is biracial. The related phrase "high brown" was used in Irving Berlin's original lyrics for "Puttin' on the Ritz". Rapper Jay-Z refers to his wife, singer Beyoncé Knowles, as "my high yellow broad," in his 2009 song "Off That," from the The Blueprint 3 album.
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