There was a lot of rap and hip-hop with lyrics that prominently and repeatedly used that word. I wondered then about what happens when non-Black fans sing along with such a song on radio or streaming or at a concert.
I did some research and it seems that a small minority of the artists think that people who sing along should sing all the words regardless of race, with most thinking non-Blacks should not sing that word. Some in the latter group also feel that it is a losing battle to try to stop it.
I think those that want to stop it can succeed--for now. If I ever feel the urge for example to sing along to some rap or hip-hop song I'll have no trouble remembering to skip the N-word part. I've long known that this is a word I should not be saying except under special circumstances where it is clear I should say it and that singing along is probably not special circumstances.
That works for me because I'm adult and when I learned the word as a kid I learned it as a derogatory term.
But now that the N-word is in popular music that plenty of non-Blacks listen to, there will be kids who grow up from the start with that in the music they listen to. It will be a word they naturally learn as part of normal language acquisition without learning the most negative connotations.
I bet it will be lot harder to get that generation to not use it when singing alone, or to not adopt it with the positive meanings that it sometime has when used in rap or hip-hop.
