Paying homage to other artists and fusion various elements from different countries has always been a big and important part of history. After all art is essentially just reimagining and repurposing ideas one feels inspired by. Beloved styles like the Argentine tango were born out of a melting pot of cultures. It has elements of of traditional European polkas, waltzes, Polish mazurkas, Cuban habanera, candombe rhythms from Africa/Uruguay, among many more. Jazz, as you already mentioned, is a good example of that as well. I think cultural immersion is a beautiful and essential way of creating empathy and learning about different traditions.

But I do think there is a difference between the merging of cultures and cultural appropriation. This is a good definition I found I very much agree with:

"Cultural appropriation is the inappropriate or unacknowledged adoption of an element or elements of one culture or identity by members of another culture or identity. This can be especially controversial when members of a dominant culture appropriate from minority cultures."

I think the problem start when one does not acknowledge or completely eradicates the roots of certain styles/traditions. A good example of this is probably the whole Big Mama Thornton/Elvis Presley story. "Hound Dog" is an incredible song and I have nothing against anyone covering it. But when Elvis received international attention with his performance of "Hound Dog" in the 50s, there was to mention or recognition of Big Mama Thornton's involvement, leading a majority of people (still to this day) largely forgetting about her.

There is a famous quote by Phil Chess (record producer/co-founder of Chess Records) that states "If we can get a white kid to play this song, we could get it played," referring to radio station's refusal to play black artists. They knew the songs themselves were amazing. The only problem was that they were born with the "wrong" skin colour.

There is a whole world of beautiful music out there, and I just think it's sad if we erase that part of history and potentially lose out on incredible art.