The Black Guy at the Country Bar
Black artists are challenging country music’s racism.
One of last year’s top country hits was laced with blatant racism.
Country music star Jason Aldean’s sarcastically titled song, “Try That In A Small Town,” was originally accompanied by a video filmed in front of a courthouse where a Black teen was lynched in 1927 and included snippets from unruly protests following George Floyd. The title of the song is more than a hint of what it was about.
Yet the song reached №1 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 and achieved the biggest sales week for a country song in a decade.
Country music star Morgan Wallen in 2021 was caught on video hurling the N-word. He’s since apologized, saying, “There’s no excuse,” and has donated money to Black causes fighting racism.
Chart-topping pop and country singer Maren Morris announced in 2023 she was “distancing herself’ from the genre because of its racist culture.
Country radio stations even refused to play Garth Brooks’ “We Shall Be Free” single, first released 30 years ago, because it was about a world free of racism, homophobia and violence. It was one of his only songs not to make the top 10.
T-Pain wrote country songs for Luke Bryan and others but now always asks his…
