Rhiannon Giddens On One of the True Causes of “Black Erasure” in Country
Before the controversy over the removal of Lil Nas X’s “Old Town Road” from the Billboard country charts would roil the country music world with accusations of racism and “black erasure,” it was Beyonce and her song “Daddy Lessons” from 2016 that had many outside of country hot and bothered that a black artist wasn’t being paid proper due and being excluded from the genre.
In fact, it was Beyonce’s perceived treatment by the country industry—and specifically the supposed disqualification of “Daddy Lessons” from being considered for country music’s Grammy nominations—that Rolling Stone and others specifically cited as the material basis for their reasoning that racism was behind Lil Nas X’s “Old Town Road” being removed from the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart. Of course this account of events excludes a couple of critical points about Beyonce and “Daddy Lessons,” including that the song was never a particularly “country” to begin with, and since it was never released properly in the country format, it never qualified for any country awards in the first place, Grammy or otherwise.
The story behind “Daddy Lessons” also regularly glosses over the fact that Beyonce and the song weren’t snubbed by country music at all. The Country Music Association extended an invitation to Beyonce to be the marquee performer at the 50th Annual CMA Awards in 2016. Beyonce received the largest performance slot of the entire night in the dead center of the presentation, taking precious airtime from country artists, and generally overshadowing the rest of the performers and festivities with her presence. Headlines from ABC News and other outlets the day after were quite literally, “Beyonce Steals the Show.”
But even that wasn’t good enough for many of Beyonce’s notoriously fervent fans, along with her surrogates in the media. Some loud-mouthed country fans left comments under a video posted of Beyonce’s performance by the CMA saying that she didn’t belong there, stimulating cries of racism. To stem these criticisms and end the negative comments, the CMA removed the video, which only then emboldened the cries of racism and black erasure towards the CMA for not promoting videos from Beyonce like they did for other performers.
The matter was litigated in dozens of think pieces at the time, and “Daddy Lessons” is commonly the basis for academic papers and other intellectual treatises on how country music is exclusionary, if not outright racist, including a new chapter issued in the latest edition of Bill Malone’s definitive country music history, Country Music USA written by a professor named Tracey E.W. Laird. Tasked with covering the last fifteen years of country music matters, Laird did not focus on the wild popularity of Taylor Swift, the rise of Bro-Country, the Chris Stapleton phenomenon, or any other topics that had serious implications on the genre at large. Instead she framed the entire chapter around Beyonce’s experience with country and the political frame in which country music should be considered because of it, all for one song that wasn’t even released as a country music single.
As Saving Country Music pointed out during the heat of the Nil Nas X controversy, in the rush to brand country music racist for not including Lil Nas X on the country charts, many were overlooking or outright ignoring the contributions of black performers who had devoted their lives to country music, and had played the game by the rules as opposed to using memes and metadata manipulations to hopscotch competition to the top of the charts.
Principle among those artists was singer, songwriter, and country roots preservationist Rhiannon Giddens. The Lil Nas X controversy came about right after she released a concept album with three other African American women called Our Native Daughters. Giddens also just released a new album called there is no Other. The founding member of the Carolina Chocolate Drops is considered among many fans an critics to be one of the premier talents of our generation both as a singer, songwriter, and contributor to setting the record straight about the influence of African Americans in country music over the years. She’s also been an actor on the hit show “Nashville,” and was one of the recipients of 2017’s MacArthur Foundation “Genius Grants.”
In 2016, Rhiannon Giddens was doing a lot to add an African American perspective and voice to country music, and helping to educate people about their contributions and influence in the music when she recorded a duet with Eric Church on the song “Kill A Word.” Not only did the song make it to #6 on country radio, and #9 on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart (the same chart that supposedly excluded Lil Nas X exclusively because he was black), Rhiannon Giddens and Eric Church performed the song on the same 2016 CMA Awards where Beyonce appeared.
Beyonce’s inclusion in the presentation was criticized by Travis Tritt, and Alan Jackson reportedly walked out when Beyonce was performing. But they were not the only performers who took issue with Beyonce taking time and attention away from country performers that a country music awards show was supposed to support. In a barely-watched video released in 2017 (see below) and recently unearthed by a Saving Country Music reader, Rhiannon Giddens explains why she had a problem with the performance too.
“I’ve studied this music. You know what I mean?” Rhiannon Giddens says. “I’m not coming from another genre. And there’s nothing wrong with that. Justin Timberlake did it last year, and that was a lovely moment … I just know what angered me about it was that it overshadowed two other performers of color who were kind of naturally there—Charley Pride, who’s a huge figure, and then myself as a guest of Eric Church.”
The point Rhiannon Giddens makes is the same one Saving Country Music made in the aftermath of the 2016 CMA Awards. In an article entitled, “It Wasn’t Beyonce Who Challenged Racial Hatred at the 2016 CMA’s.”
What has been the result of Beyonce’s involvement in the 2016 awards? Division and acrimony. Some will tell you that Beyonce is just what country music needed to root out its racial bigotry … It has fanned the flames …
And though it seems that few, if any noticed, it wasn’t Beyonce that decided to tackle hatred and racism head on in her performance at the 2016 awards, it was Eric Church. The song that Eric Church decided to perform on the 2016 CMA Awards was called “Kill A Word.” It’s a duet with a black country music performer named Rhiannon Giddens. “Kill A Word” is a song about the very themes that have come to the forefront in the aftermath of the Beyonce performance, and all the seemingly endless racial threads that it has sprouted. It’s about how important it is that we listen to each other, and instead of shouting accusations, understand how divides don’t get broken down with insults and name calling, but get exacerbated by them.
Rhiannon Giddens goes on to say in the 2017 interview, “[Eric Church] was making a really particular point having me sing on his song. His song was all about turning hate into love, and getting rid of these words of anger. That upset me that it was overshadowed. [Beyonce’s performance] turned into a flashpoint, rather than a moment of, ‘Yeah, this is awesome!’ Because it didn’t feel organic. It doesn’t matter who you are, if the moment doesn’t come from the inside, the moment doesn’t come from a genuine desire to inhabit the music.”
The words of Rhiannon Giddens underscore how all of the controversy with Beyonce and now Lil Nas X, and the calls for “inclusion” of these pop/hip-hop stars in country, isn’t in any way aiding the breaking down of racial barrier because it’s being done for all the wrong reasons, and isn’t “organic.” In fact it’s exacerbating racial tensions. The other adverse affect is the overshadowing of artists such as Rhiannon Giddens who are strong, dedicated, talented, and skilled country and roots artists of color who get overlooked for, in Lil Nas X’s case, a performer who came to prominence with a 1:53 song pushed through meme culture.
“As somebody who has tirelessly advocated for getting the history of the banjo, the history of early American music, the history of blacks in country music, not the easy way … I didn’t go into pop … I took a really particularly … it’s a difficult route, and I’m proud of it,” Rhiannon Giddens says. “I wouldn’t do anything differently.”
The true aspect of “black erasure” in country music at the moment is not coming from the removal of Lil Nas X from the country charts, or even the Beyonce incident back in 2016. It is coming from the media, who in their desire to paint country music as wholly racist, are overlooking many of country music’s African American contributors, or in some instances, purposely avoiding or excluding them from the conversation to strengthen their case. We saw this with how the media avoided presenting the legacy of Charley Pride—a Country Music Hall of Famer and one of the greatest-selling country artists of all time—who was inaccurately excluded in a viral tweet thread. Many in the media even avoided the recent successes of contemporary black country artists such as Kane Brown and Jimmie Allen when presenting the story of Lil Nas X, both of whom have scored #1 songs in country in the last year. Kane Brown will have the #1 song on country radio next week with “Good As You.” How is that possible if country music is systemically excluding artists of color?
As much of the pop media rage for “inclusion” in country, they have no clue who an artist like Rhiannon Giddens even is. Nor do they know about Mickey Guyton, Yola, Charley Crockett, Tony Jackson, Aaron Vance, and scores of other African American artists who as Rhiannon Giddens said have “…studied this music” and are “not coming from another genre.” These media members are often poptimists who use media to Stan for top-level pop stars such as Beyonce and Lil Nas X at the expense of the more substantive artists of our time in every genre. If country music is ever going to become truly inclusive, it’s these homegrown and devoted country artists who need to be supported and revered, not performers such as Lil Nas X.
This week, Lil Nas X spent his 7th week at #1 in all of music. He is now is a millionaire, and had so much expendable cash, he purchased a Maserati for Billy Ray Cyrus on the spot. Lil Nas X doesn’t need to be included on the country charts for his success. It’s country artists who rely on that chart for attention who need to make sure they’re not overshadowed by performers outside the genre like Lil Nas X and Beyonce. The same goes for the women of country music, who were recently overshadowed by the dominance of Bebe Rexha and her song “Meant To Be.”
Country charts, country radio, and country awards are for country artists. Country does not, and would never demand attention and inclusion from other genres. African Americans are a minority in America, but hip-hop is the most dominant genre by far, doubling the take of country last year. Hip-hop artists don’t need country music to succeed. It’s country music that needs to support its own if it’s going to survive moving forward, including, if not especially, it’s African American and women artists. These artists are often the ones leading the way when it comes to talent, creativity, leadership, and preserving the roots of the music while also finding ways to push them forward and make them more inclusive to everyone. And there is no better example of that than Rhiannon Giddens.
Saving Bro Country Music
May 24, 2019 @ 9:36 am
Some great points here, and I’m glad you were able to find an actual country artist discussing the situation.
The problem is that your argument is still allowing for some easy retorts from the un-nuanced masses.
1) Saying Beyonce is taking away from Rhiannon seems to support token-ism. Why is there a finite number of black women who can receive exposure? Why aren’t you instead getting mad at a white male like Luke Bryan for taking her spot?
That argument also applied to Bebe Rexha’s success. Why were we mad at Bebe Rexha for taking airplay from real country women … yet giving Walker Hayes a pass?
2) It’s easy, as Shane Morris has done, to reduce the “look at all these other black artists in country” to “I have a black friend so I can’t be racist.”
The other issue – and perhaps the more damaging one – is that prominent members of the country industry are actively supporting pop stars infiltrating their genre. You have people like Maren Morris who clearly view Beyonce as an idol. You had people like Jake Owen and Bobby Bones throwing support behind Lil Nas X. And, of course, you have the general “country needs to evolve / who cares about genre in 2019” point that so many artists these days support.
When that happens, it dismisses the “we need to protect country” as an archaic, racist concern. It strips you of the ability to have a legitimate discussion about the music, because if these actual country stars are cool with it … you should be too.
Trigger
May 24, 2019 @ 10:06 am
Respectfully, none of this makes any sense at all.
“1) Saying Beyonce is taking away from Rhiannon seems to support token-ism. Why is there a finite number of black women who can receive exposure? Why aren’t you instead getting mad at a white male like Luke Bryan for taking her spot?”
Nobody is saying there should be a finite amount of spots for black women. Luke Bryan didn’t take a spot away from Rhiannon Giddens. Rhiannon Giddens performed on the 2016 CMA Awards. The point is you could have had 10 African American women perform on the 2016 CMA Awards, and ALL of them would have been overshadowed by Beyonce, just like all the white men were, because she was the biggest pop star in all of music, and the media is obsessed with her.
“That argument also applied to Bebe Rexha’s success. Why were we mad at Bebe Rexha for taking airplay from real country women … yet giving Walker Hayes a pass?”
Again, this is the wrong forum to make that argument in, just like the rest of your points. Nobody has been a bigger critic than Walker Hays than me, and I have gone out of my way to say he doesn’t belong in country. You may be speaking more broadly about country music at large, but that argument holds no water here because it’s absolutely false.
Bobby Bones shouldn’t be a country music DJ. Maren Morris’s last record wasn’t country at all. You want to point those double standards out, do it to pop country fans. It’s irrelevant to the discussion here.
Trigger
May 24, 2019 @ 10:39 am
Also, I don’t want to come across as an arrogant asshole here. I understand what you’re getting at. But it’s really frustrating when I’ve expended tons of ink criticizing the inclusion of Bebe Rexha, Walker Hayes, Sam Hunt, Bobby Bones, and others in country, and somehow their trespasses are used to undermine my arguments. I can only speak for myself, and there is no double standard when it comes to Lil Nas X here. Yes, Bebe Rexha and Sam Hunt should have been kicked off the charts as well.
ScottG
May 24, 2019 @ 11:43 am
What?! All this time I thought you loved and championed Bebe, Walker, Sam, etc. as country artists! I must have missed something. 😝
“if these actual country stars are cool with it … you should be too” is just priceless.
Saving Bro Country Music
May 24, 2019 @ 1:36 pm
At this point, there is no point in writing these articles for the Saving Country Music community. 95% of people here already agree with Trigger, and most of the remaining 5% is simply here to troll.
The aim is to change the broader narrative about country music, which thanks to the media and general public’s mishandling of many issues (including the recent Lil Nas X situation), is not ideal at the moment.
When the broader market (people who generally don’t have the same appreciation that you, I or Trigger have for the history of country music) sees numerous influential, popular country personalities supporting Lil Nas X or Bebe Rexha, advocating for the crossing of genres, citing Beyonce or Bruno Mars as their top influences, criticizing the country institution, etc … it becomes easier for the media to view the “Saving Country Music approach” in a negative light.
Of course a passionate country fan isn’t turning to Maren Morris for insight into what’s country. But to the 23-year-old Twitter warrior that knows her but has never heard of Cody Jinks … she’s a country artist. And if she’s OK mirroring Beyonce … then why should we worry about whether Beyonce performs at the CMAs?
liza
May 24, 2019 @ 10:00 pm
You both make excellent points. But there are not and never have been scores of African American country artists. There is a reason Rhiannon said that the route she chose is a difficult one.
Lefty Throckmorton
August 6, 2019 @ 1:55 pm
Liza, the reason there haven’t been any more Afro-American C&W acts that are known other than Charley Pride and Ray Charles is because mainstream (some call it lamestream) media seems to not want to care about the other Afro-American C&W acts, and can only fixate on Lil Nas X and the other country rappers. There have most likely been more than just Rhiannon and all of the recent others, but when Afro-American musicians/groups are mentioned, it’s always R&B, Motown, soul, funk, soft breeze, and rap/hip-hop, plus (sometimes) Afrobeat and reggae.
Saving Bro Country Music
May 24, 2019 @ 1:00 pm
Why are you responding to me as if these are my points? I generally agree with you, but I’m giving you some help by making you aware of how the typical “media type” can take down your arguments.
Arguments online aren’t won by being right, they’re about convincing a greater percentage of people that you’re right.
In that sense, I’ve seen Shane Morris types get tons of twitter support, and thus “clown you” in these arguments as far as the broader public is concerned, by preying on the same vulnerabilities I discussed.
If you want people outside your community to take your points seriously, you have got to plug up the “black friend” and “quota” holes. What you wrote to me won’t convince anyone who doesn’t already agree with you.
You can say you don’t care, and that’s fine, but then you can’t complain when people develop misconceptions because your approach is actually inciting them.
Cool Lester Smooth
May 24, 2019 @ 1:29 pm
The issue is that Trig’s stance has consistently been “Fuck all these bro country guys taking up airplay that should belong someone like Kacey Musgraves or Kellie Pickler, who actually play country.”
My own generic response to the particular whataboutism of “a lot of stuff on country radio isn’t country either!” Tends to be:
“You’re right. None of them should be on the charts either. Hopefully Billboard disqualifying Lil Nas X is just the start!”
Saving Bro Country Music
May 24, 2019 @ 1:46 pm
– If you’re well-versed in this site, you know Trigger has the best intentions.
If you’re a social justice warrior and see a random article that says “Here are black artists who are more deserving of country’s support than Lil Nas X” … it’s so beyond natural to react “Why can’t we give attention to those artists AND Lil Nas X? Why is there a cap on how many black artists we can support?”
And when other Twitter warriors see that kind of break down, they jump on board, and suddenly SCM looks bad. That’s why I wrote my post – to make sure he’s thinking about the way the worst kind of online user may interpret his argument.
– To be fair to the SJWs, while Trigger HAS routinely criticized a lot of the “pop country” names that keep getting lumped into this discussion … I don’t believe he typically frames it in a racial diversity context.
Like, he may have said “Walker Hayes is taking airplay away from real country artists.” He may have even said it’s taking away airplay from female country artists. But I don’t believe he said “Walker Hayes getting airplay is specifically preventing black artists from succeeding in country,” at least not prior to this recent situation.
If I’m wrong, I apologize. If I’m right, that would lend further support to the “quota” criticism. It’s Lil Nas X possibly taking the “black guy spot” on the charts.
ScottG
May 24, 2019 @ 1:37 pm
You have some valid points as well. As you said, all of this is IF one wants to appeal to a certain crowd. Twitter in particular, has been recently been shown by pew research to be a pretty one sided demographic…anyway, I think you are missing one thing in all of this. Trigger has a point, and he’s given voice to many people who have also spoken out against this shit. Of all different VARIOUS backgrounds. Rhiannon speaks on this subject with some authority, for various reasons, not just the “tokenized” one. And their views seem to be more or less aligned on the subject. NOT sharing what someone like her has to say, out of fear of “being clowned” would be more problematic than being attacked with the same old knee jerk uninformed argument. Her voice and others have been conveniently buried in this debate. Bringing it up, to me at least anyway, though it will be criticized, seems more important than worrying about being clowned.
Trigger
May 24, 2019 @ 1:46 pm
Well, I apologize if I misinterpreted your comment, but I just went a re-read it, and it still feels like you’re personally poking holes in my argument as opposed to representing the views of someone else. Either way, I recognize the arguments being made in this situation, but I’m just not sure we should lay down just because the other side is not receptive to what we’re saying. I also disagree with your 5% assessment. You have to understand that the vast majority of traffic that comes to Saving Country Music is via search engines. This site is specifically designed NOT to preach to a choir, but grow the flock.
Clayton
May 24, 2019 @ 10:09 am
For a more complete understanding of Giddens’ position on issues like this, please read and watch her IBMA speech. https://ibma.org/rhiannon-giddens-keynote-address-2017/
She champions the role black musicians played in the development of country music and shines a bright light on how much they’ve been erased from its history.
The clumsy handling of Lil Nas by the country music establishment is proof of the hypocrisy this website typically highlights. That establishment always chases pop music trends and finds ways to pass them off as country, but gets squeamish when an outsider does the same thing.
Trigger
May 24, 2019 @ 10:47 am
One of the frustrating things about how country music is being portrayed by popular media is that they present it as such a monolith, which is solely conservative, white, and male when it’s made of up multipler distinctive camps. The same people saying that country music needs Beyonce and Lil Nas X are the same people who think that Chris Stapleton is “real country” and basically represents the floor of popularity in the genre. They have no nose for the nuance, the diversity within the genre, and no clue what lies beneath the surface of the mainstream. The independent side of country now makes up more than 1/3rd of the industry. There are independent artists selling out arenas and charting #1 albums. Rhiannon Giddens is not some unknown. She is a well-decorated artist who has received many awards, and has appeared on mainstream charts and national broadcasts and has been leading the fight to make sure the African American influence in country doesn’t go forgotten. That’s why I can only imagine how disconcerting it could be to her when she is overshadowed by a pop star like Beyonce.
Cool Lester Smooth
May 24, 2019 @ 1:09 pm
I’m…not sure what Lil Nas X has to do with “the development of country music,” bud.
Also…what does Billboard have to do with “the country music establishment”?
If “the establishment” had their way. I’m sure this song would be atop every chart possible, just like “Meant to Be” and Walker Hayes are.
Kross
May 24, 2019 @ 12:05 pm
I like RG, I think she’s very talented. I also agree with her assessment that having Beyonce at the CMA’s probably overshadowed other performers of color. Beyonce had no business being there, and that’s just the fact of the matter. But make no mistake about it, RG is a purveyor of her own brand identity politics. She has been quoted several times at being miffed about the fact that she doesn’t have very many black fans. I’ve always been confused by her determination to try to garner more black fans. Shouldn’t she just be happy to have any fans at all, no matter the racial make up? how well would it be received if a white artist said they wanted to attract more white fans? The media would have that artist crucified before they had a chance to hit the twitter button on their iPhone to better explain themselves. So yeah, she makes a valid point about the 2016 CMA’s but I take whatever else she says about race with a grain of salt.
Cool Lester Smooth
May 24, 2019 @ 1:16 pm
I mean…she’s dedicated her life to the preservation of a specific strand of black musical culture.
A much more appropriate analogy is a Celtic folk revival band who only sing as gaeilge complaining about their entire audience being blue blooded, NPR listening WASPs.
Kross
May 24, 2019 @ 2:57 pm
I’m just pointing out hypocrisy and double standards. I don’t have a problem w/ her preserving the heritage of black music. As a matter of fact, I encourage it. I love the idea of black people not be so culturally influenced by urban and hip hop music. I’m just saying don’t get mad if the majority of your audience is white. She has a god given gift. If some reason it appeals mostly to white people it’s not a bad thing. Good honest music always finds a way to get where it’s supposed to go. But the way she phrases her dissatisfaction over the racial percentage of her audience makes me believe she doesn’t want white people listening to her music at all. Which I find really weird seeing as how she’s half white.
Jack Williams
May 24, 2019 @ 4:41 pm
Giddens told me that, on principle, she has no problem performing for mostly white audiences. “Half my family is white, you know?” she said. “But I would like to see more people from my other community at the shows and in the know.” A few years ago, she tried to bring a tour to H.B.C.U.s (historically black colleges and universities), but interest seemed to be lacking. “It’s hard,” she said. “I don’t feel black enough, sometimes, to be bothered with. I know it’s childhood stuff, but it’s hard to shake.” She recently helped to form the band Our Native Daughters, which comprises four female musicians of color, all of whom play the banjo in the group. When I asked if she had been excited for black people to hear the band’s music and experience it as their own, she responded, with characteristic bluntness, by jumping from hypothetical scenarios to material realities. The band’s record, she said, had been released by Smithsonian Folkways. “It won’t be covered by any black press,” she said. “We took the platform that was offered.” She told me recently that the Apollo Theatre, in Harlem, had turned down the Native Daughters’ offer to play a show. The reasons were unclear, but, Giddens said, rejections like that make her wonder, “Am I truly that out of the black cultural Zeitgeist, or are the gatekeepers just that narrow-minded?”
The prospect of gaining a wider, and blacker, audience is, one imagines, always an option for Giddens, who could, if she really wanted to, cut a pop record and presumably ascend to a higher sales bracket. But she has been unwilling to compromise her quest, which is, in part, to remind people that the music she plays is black music. In 2017, she received a MacArthur “genius” grant, a validation that has reinforced her tendency to stick to her instincts. “You do what you’re given,” she told me on the phone recently. “I’m not gonna force something or fake something to try to get more black people at my shows. I’m not gonna do some big hip-hop crossover.” She paused, and remembered that she is about to do a hip-hop crossover, with her nephew Justin, a.k.a. Demeanor, a rapper who also plays the banjo. “Well,” she said, laughing, “not unless I can find a way to make it authentic.” She told me that she does not really like hip-hop. This threw me into the comical position of trying to sell her on the genre. “The stuff I like is the protest music,” she said. “I like Queen Latifah. But the over-all doesn’t speak to me. I’m not an urban black person. I’m a country black person.”
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/05/20/rhiannon-giddens-and-what-folk-music-means
Kross
May 24, 2019 @ 7:08 pm
No time to read war and peace bruh
Corncaster
May 25, 2019 @ 10:19 am
“Am I truly that out of the black cultural Zeitgeist, or are the gatekeepers just that narrow-minded?”
Some black folks like to police blackness just like other ethnic groups.
“Just stay black” is a thing, and has been a thing for as long as I’ve been alive.
Rhiannon is not colored enough for a “black” audience. Maybe she could start calling them out. But NPR types are probably an easier sell.
liza
May 24, 2019 @ 10:04 pm
How white of you.
Tunesmiff
May 25, 2019 @ 3:46 am
“Good honest music always finds a way to get where it’s supposed to go…”
Cool Lester Smooth
May 25, 2019 @ 6:25 am
I’ll give you the SparksNotes version of those, very lengthy, three paragraphs:
Your argument is entirely specious, and is either deliberately misrepresenting Giddens’ perspective in bad faith, or simply evidences that your inability to “read War and Peace” also extends to any ability to understand complex cultural issues.
I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt, and assume the latter.
Trigger
May 24, 2019 @ 4:16 pm
I have no doubt that the politics of Rhiannon Giddens lean left and are based strongly in identity. That puts all the more power behind her words. Understand that if you say anything critical about Lil Nas X or Beyonce’s participation in country, the default is that you are racist. By Rhiannon Giddens explaining as a black country performer why being overshadowed by performers outside the genre is a very powerful message.
As for her wanting to see more black people in her audience, I can’t blame her for that. This whole argument about “diversity” in country, and Americana specifically is obsessed with the ethnicity of the people on the stage. You go to your average Americana show, and it’s rich, affluent, educated white people often starring at an artist of color. It’s weird.
Corncaster
May 24, 2019 @ 5:03 pm
Giddens is multi-ethnic, went to Oberlin, and married a white Irish guy with whom she has a couple kids. She can sing in Gaelic.
Multi-ethnic, like most of us.
Cool Lester Smooth
May 25, 2019 @ 6:32 am
And it’s entirely understandable that she wants to see a multi-ethnic audience at her shows, rather than the NPR crowd (of which I myself am very much a member)…and that somehow who grew up multiracial feels hurt at a perceived rejection of her identity by half her community.
liza
May 24, 2019 @ 10:07 pm
Beyonce was there for the same reason that other non-Country performers are put on the roster every year – ratings and money. The same decisions made by old white guys every year. It’s much more a corporate thing than it is a who owns the genre thing.
Lefty Throckmorton
August 6, 2019 @ 2:31 pm
But these morons are destroying country music by doing this, and Beyonce should stick to her own genre.
Reasonable mainstream country fan
May 24, 2019 @ 12:22 pm
Interesting article and discussion. Thanks for this. Did anyone happen to read the article about Rhiannon in the New Yorker a few months back? It’s excellent and broaches this subject through Frank Johnson, a forgotten African-American fiddle prodigy from the last century.
The article is here: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/05/20/rhiannon-giddens-and-what-folk-music-means
Corncaster
May 24, 2019 @ 1:04 pm
I fault teachers and professors. Three generations now of young people have been brainwashed into thinking that a person or thing is only culturally significant or valuable if it somehow sticks it to the Man, “disrupts” some industy, or “transgresses” some norm.
No wonder we’re at each others’ throats. Giddens has absorbed some of this attitude, but not nearly as much as others.
The only authority is competence. It transcends every category, racial or otherwise.
Lefty Throckmorton
August 6, 2019 @ 2:52 pm
The truth, Corncaster, is that young people (of color) who’ve never been really included in the system and women have had to have something like this in order to be sure of themselves and to be able to thrive in academic institutions and the larger society, because academic institutions and the larger culture/society doesn’t care about a person unless said person can fit into it like some sort of Borg drone. To be sure, it’s produced schoolboy howlers like this POS song (which in turn produced this white supremacist response decades later) , but IMHO it’s been needed for people upset with the way things are to give them a voice.
wayne
May 24, 2019 @ 7:29 pm
Americana is to music what the modern media is to journalism.
Jack Williams
May 25, 2019 @ 5:04 am
Deep.
Irony
May 24, 2019 @ 9:49 pm
It is pretty amazing to me that this whole time country fans are like “country music isn’t racist, it isn’t racist, it isn’t racist” while on this very thread, there are people questioning the desire of a black artist to bring more black people to listen to their music and then they wonder why people outside of the genre consider the genre to be racist! The irony! Oh she must HATE white fans if she wants black fans to listen to her music. That’s so bigoted that it’s funny! Wanting more black fans is not to the exclusion of white fans. It isn’t one vs the other. Saying you want more black people to listen to your music doesn’t mean that you don’t want white peoples to listen to it, and the fact that that even has to be said out loud is amazing to me. It’s stuff like that that leads to this genre being deemed as racist. Unbelievable
Jack Williams
May 25, 2019 @ 4:30 am
Not people. One person (Kross), at least so far. Others may read his comment and agree with it. I posted two paragraphs from a New Yorker article where she talks about the issue in detail, but he can’t be bothered reading them.
Cool Lester Smooth
May 25, 2019 @ 6:40 am
Eh. I think this site’s point is more along the lines of “No one writing ‘thinkpieces’ about Beyoncé and Lil Nas X is genuinely interested in promoting black representation in the country genre. If they were, they’d be writing about black musicians who actually do play country music, and the obstacles they face in the industry.”
Todd Villars
May 24, 2019 @ 10:32 pm
Irony,
I don’t think it’s irony at all. If someone of color wants to make “real” country music, like Charlie Pride, Big Al Downing & Stoney Edwards, i’ll go to there shows when they are in town and buy there albums. But I am not going to support the Kane Browns, Little Nas or what ever the fuck his name is music. It’s not country. These people of color pop stars trying to cross over is a joke. There basically saying if you don’t support us we are going to shame you by calling everybody racist. Go ahead, I’m a racist because I think your music sucks. Don’t piss down my back and tell me its raining! They are applying the Democratic platform to country music, they’ve been doing this for years. I don’t care if you like that statement or not!
BS
May 28, 2019 @ 6:18 am
Don’t want to support Lil Nas X / Kane Brown because you don’t like their music? Cool. But don’t pretend Sam Hunt or Walker Hayes or Jason Aldean are any better, or more country, than Kane Brown is.
Todd Villars
May 28, 2019 @ 5:47 pm
BS,
Where does it say in my post that I like those guys? There is a lot you can learn from a person by their posts. The first thing I would have picked up on is I mentioned Charley Pride, Big Al Downing and Stoney Edwards. If I didn’t know my real country music I wouldn’t know who those guys are. So, if I am a fan of their music, I surely wouldn’t be a fan of the 3 pretenders you mentioned above. To say Kane Brown is country is like saying Buck Owens was a pop artist. He is not country, I’m sorry that you think he is, rap music and artificial drum beats have no place in the genre.
Cool Lester Smooth
May 28, 2019 @ 6:17 pm
Yeah, I can only think of one reason to lump Brown in with Lil Nas X…and it has nothing to do with their music.
Jack Williams
May 28, 2019 @ 6:49 pm
I think I know what you’re getting at. They’re both black, right? But another thing they have in common is that there are people out there who are culture warriors first and who might know next to nothing about country music, who might accuse a person of racism if they said either one of them isn’t country music. Such people aren’t going to make that particular claim if you say Walker Hayes isn’t country.
Lefty Throckmorton
August 6, 2019 @ 3:16 pm
Todd, what the almighty fuck is the ‘Democratic platform’ and how does it apply to country music? I swear to deity, you neocons are not doing anything but making Trigger and others look racist and stupid with neocon bullshit statements like these that sound like the Twitter comments from Trump as well as derailing his efforts. There isn’t any platform from the Democratic party to wreck country music, but there is a platform from the Republican party that aims to advance racism from white people towards blacks and other people of color, and to advance sexism from men towards women.