I remember an interview with Ry Cooder in which he was laying into Omara Portuando for wanting to sound like Barbara Streisand, one of her favorite singers. Ry's point was she should stick to what makes her unique and special. Frankly I thought he was full of crap. Another argument that musicians should be limited in where they're allowed to take influence from. So is Portuondo a cultural imperialist? What are the implications of her using the music of American Jewish culture?
Indeed it's far more appropriate that she should receive direction from a more respectable, white, male American, such as Ry Cooder.
Ya know, the Minutemen stole funk from the black man, as the Pop Group did before them. In a way that's the same thing. And yet, nobody is going to confuse a Minutemen record with a Rick James one. It's a lift, but it's not a complete and total one.
By the same token, there's nothing morally wrong with Paul Simon using African forms & musicians if it inspires him to do original work.
Whether the listener will think it's good, bad, indifferent, a watered down version of the real thing, better than the real thing, a genius melding of the best parts of human expression from around the world, is another thing.