A term sometimes used by critics for the tendency of white appropriators of African American culture to change it to make it “more white,” which usually means “more suitable for middle class white people with family values etc who may not feel like they can or want to relate to African American experience.”
Though this phenomenon has largely passed out of culture as white people have become more ready to identify with black experience and to want the edge and coolness often found in black culture, vanillization used to fairly common. For instance, Paul Whiteman, the ironically named “King of Jazz” in the 1920s, said he wanted to “make a lady of jass [jazz].” Many white musicians cleaned up the lyrics of the raunchy blues songs that became the first jazz songs and sometimes played in more lighthearted or humourous style, as opposed to the more bluesy style that many black musicians were famous for.
In the 1950s, when r&b and rock and roll became popular, great songs by African American artists were licensed and “whiter” versions of the songs, performed by white stars, were created for the large mainstream white audience, many of whom were still racist or living in a segregated society where they might not hear much black music by black musicians.