1,804 words
Back in the mid-1990s when Tiger Woods took the golf world by storm and the American press was enraptured with the Earth-shifting progress that having a splash of melanin on the putting green signified, I can’t recall hearing a single black person joyously exclaiming, “Lawdy me and Land o’ Goshen, it’s about goddamned time a brother won the Masters!”
I never knew blacks to care much for golfing.
Similarly, I’ve never met a black person who lost sleep worrying that country music — a genre that has been dying a slow death along with the culturally distinct white working class that produced it during a specific historical era — was “too white.” Apparently, though, it’s a big problem. I had no idea it was a problem, and I also had no idea that I was making the problem worse by being so drunk on privilege that I never noticed how big a problem it truly is.
Even more problematic is the fact that the musician who had the biggest-selling album out of all musical genres last year was Morgan Wallen, a white country artist who faced scorn and widespread deplatforming a year ago when some snooping neighbor released a tape showing an apparently drunken Wallen telling his white cohorts, “Hey, take care of this pussy-ass nigga.” As far as I can discern, Wallen was attempting to make sure that his drunken white friend arrived at his destination safely.
I have seen no reports that his friend felt insulted by being categorized as a black person, and I find it interesting that I’m the only one who seems capable of empathizing with his friend here.
Neither do I know whether any black people were furious at being compared to Wallen’s drunken white friend. But the “firestorm” of “outrage” that erupted led Wallen’s booking agent to drop him, for his record label to suspend him indefinitely, and for much of the country-music radio industry to stop playing his music.
Wallen apologized: “I’m embarrassed and sorry. I used an unacceptable and inappropriate racial slur that I wish I could take back. There are no excuses to use this type of language, ever. I want to sincerely apologize for using the word. I promise to do better” — and pledged a half-million dollars to black-led organizations. But at one point last year while he was being boycotted by radio stations, Wallen still had five of the nation’s Top 50 country singles. He racked up his biggest-selling-album-of-the-year numbers after his “pussy-ass nigga” scandal last February. It’s hard to think he achieved this level of success after an N-bomb controversy because of his apology; I’d like to believe his sales catapulted strictly due to the fact that he used the word, hard “R” or not.
But for many others — you know the type, we all know the type, we are sick to fucking death of the type — an innocent N-bomb hurled at a white friend was all the proof they needed that “racism” still runs “rampant” in the country music industry. When one re-reckons the fact that we are now nearly two years into the racial reckoning that kicked off when George Floyd passed a counterfeit bill and then had a Fentanyl conniption, after all the burned buildings and raped women and murder victims, I shake my damn bald head that we still live in a world where a country star feels entitled to refer to his drunken white friend as a “pussy-ass nigga.”
Clearly it is time for a Great Replacement of sorts in country music. It is time for “the white man’s blues” to go black and never come back.
Mickey Guyton is a black female country singer who had languished around Nashville for nearly a decade without much success until she decided to focus her lyrics on her big, bushy black Afro and the fact that most country music fans don’t realize what it’s like to be black like her, after which she became a useful tool for those who were “scurrying to fix the optics of having too many white faces in country music.” She quickly became the first black woman to be nominated for a solo country Grammy, the first black woman to host the Academy of Country Music Awards, and just recently the first black female country singer to belt out the National Anthem at the Super Bowl. She’s hardly the first black woman to sing the National Anthem at the Super Bowl, and this year’s halftime show was basically a chemical spill of aggressive blackness, but Guyton “overcame racism” to become the first black female country singer to sing the National Anthem at the Super Bowl during Black History Month, and Mickey says this is very important to the famously country-music-loving black community:
It’s Black History Month, and a black country singer gets to sing the National Anthem at the Super Bowl. Wow. This is a huge moment for me. It’s a huge moment for black people. And I want to represent that in the best possible way that I can.
Uplifting stuff. Do your song lyrics address any other topics besides being black? I mean, I think you’ve already covered that.
But whereas one might expect a black person to be silly and overenthusiastic about these things — c’mon, give them a break, they truly don’t have a lot to celebrate — to me, the true Simon Legree characters in these scenarios are the white artists who piously condemn everything that “old” country music represented in an apparent attempt to keep afloat in a climate where the biggest-selling country artist in the world was nearly unpersoned because he referred to a drunken white friend as a “pussy-ass nigga.”
Jason Isbell is one such character, and according to a glowing profile from the literary geniuses over at BuzzFeed, the country singer “Is Tired Of Country’s Love Affair With White Nostalgia.” Isbell recorded a 2017 song called “White Man’s World” in which he managed to feel guilty about both the black man and the red man:
I’m a white man living on a white man’s street
I’ve got the bones of the red man under my feet
The highway runs through their burial grounds
Past the oceans of cotton
I’m a white man looking in a black man’s eyes
Wishing I’d never been one of the guys
Who pretended not to hear another white man’s joke
Oh, the times ain’t forgotten
Nice lyrics, bro. Sharing your guilt is freakin’ brave.
Isbell, who made an ostentatious display of hiring seven separate black country female performers to open his eight-night stand at Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium, refers to Morgan Wallen as an “idiot” and essentially a failed human being in the aftermath of Pussy-Ass Niggagate, which is why it must sting Isbell in the core of his little jellyfish heart that his all-time most successful song, “Cover Me Up” — which has been streamed 48 million times on Spotify — was covered by the idiot racist Morgan Wallen and got nearly 200 million listens. That’s gotta hurt.
Is it possible that consumers are starving for some breathtakingly unabashed racial animosity in their popular music? And would this be such a horrible trend?
Civilizations, like musical genres and ideological fads, emerge during very specific temporal, demographic, economic, climatic, and geographic circumstances. The country music that I love — the lush, swelling, reverb-drenched, massive-sounding, orchestral, narcotic “Nashville Sound” of the 1960s — conjures for me a total environment where America was on top of the world, conditions for the white working class were better than they’d ever been, and where generations of propagandistic guilt-tripping and carefully curated demographic replacement had yet to corrode and hobble the practitioners of this whitest of musical forms to the point where the most urgent issue facing country music is that it needs more black singers and that everyone is forbidden from calling them niggers.
But that world is gone — forever, never to return –, so country music is now perma-stillborn, an anachronism, forced to be either a pathetic nostalgia act or a postmodern gesture of blasphemy against the original art form, which is I guess what’s happening with all the black singers and all the decidedly non-hillbilly social-justice obsessions.
Gone is the primitively quaint world of the Skillet Lickers, a hillbilly band from Georgia who recorded “Run Nigger Run” in 1927 and “Nigger in the Woodpile” in 1930, and yet still, to this very minute, seem far less tediously offensive to me than some black woman becoming a millionaire by whining that country music neglects black women.
There were some great old black country musicians, too; I’ve never heard anyone play a harmonica better than DeFord Bailey, and Linda Martell could do justice to a song about heartbreak in a way that could make Kitty Wells proud. Charley Pride went from Sledge, Mississippi to smelting plants in Montana to the Grand Ole Opry, and even in the 1970s, country fans were so bigoted that they gave him 30 number one singles. Country fans also snapped up singles by Johnny Cash that lionized racially-abused Native American war vets, and anti-racist children’s songs by Henson Cargill. And for all the flak that country music gets about being misogynist, it boasts a higher quotient of female performers than rap, R&B, and indie rock.
The difference between country music now and that of the 1960s can be summed up in one word: guilt. Back when country music was good, it was related to a healthy culture. There was no white guilt and no wannabe black musicians guilt-tripping their way into a career. Charley Pride was a black man from Mississippi, but I don’t recall him ever singing about being black. He sung about heartbreak and hitchhiking in the rain to get away from a woman he’d never be able to get over. And even though his audience was likely composed of 99% rural crackers at any given moment, I don’t ever remember Charley Pride apologizing for being black or scolding his audience for being white.
But now we inhabit a world where even the biggest-selling country artists have to express contrition to the entire black diaspora because they drunkenly called a white friend a “pussy-ass nigga.” Every white country artist is expected to either show remorse for, or never even mention, the fact that they’re white — only Merle Haggard was able to survive putting out a single called “I’m a White Boy,” and that was 45 years ago — whereas black country artists are encouraged to plumb the depths of their blackness and everyone else is discouraged from even thinking of stopping them.
Does anyone think that will end well? Do any of you pussy-ass niggas even think it was designed to end well?
Country music died a while ago; what’s happening now is simply the ritual abuse of its corpse. Better to leave the old lady alone and gently shut the barn door.
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25 comments
Have you ever heard any of David Allen Coe’s renegade albums. He was unapologetically using the n-word with the R very stressed at the end.
His most famous single was You Never Even Call Me by My Name.
I believe you’re talking about this hallowed chestnut: https://www.ouvirmusica.com.br/coe-david-allan/1035179/
No one, except perhaps vintage NWA, will ever top Johnny Rebel for the land-speed N-bomb record. https://jimgoad.net/pdf/race/segregationhitparade.pdf
Thanks for the bonus material Jim. You certainly more than one upped me there. Your article does mention Coe, but Johnny Rebel takes home first prize. I wonder if it’s still possible to get a copy of his music? Just owning one would put me on a terrorist watch list.
I didn’t notice the video you also sent. Funny stuff. David Allen Coe , Chrissie Hynde and Devo. The prides of Akron Ohio.
I once dated a girl who had also dated a member of Devo. I won’t identify him, but all I’ll say is that, according to this girl, he was not fond of Jews.
Johnny Rebel “Send em all back to Africa” – great humor even the castrated may find funny
A fairly dispiriting article full of all the double standards running rampant in the era… until mention of the cover of “Cover Me Up”… thanks Jim for lifting my spirits. I could believe in the offensiveness of the word if I stopped hearing black people use it so much. It has become a dumb way to create opportunity for blacks by removing anyone caught issuing it. Remember that hip hop singer invited the girl onstage to sing the lyrics with him, when it got to the N-word she took heat for singing it with him, if I recall. Perhaps someone can link to the story.
Film is in a new dark age as the creators are so focused on representation and fear of reprisals they don’t seem to have any energy to put forth something interesting.
I have never not believed that if one can be broken by hearing an “offensive” word, that person should be put in an institution. They are clearly not fit to love in a free society. That we are now 100% ruled by such feeble minded individuals is proof positive that there is no coming out of this.
Good riddance to country music. It seems to me the very home of the boomers who were so helpful getting us here in the first place.
Most “boomers” are into classic rock. Country music was a real White art form created and enjoyed in large part by souther poor White people. It’s pretty low, and quite indicative of the destructive mindset of younger generations, to nihilistically cheer its demise.
Hank III should write a song about this. There’ll be none of this modern cringe from him. His song ‘The Grand Ole Opry Ain’t So Grand Anymore’ is an example of his straight talking, although on a different topic.
This is one of those surreal things that should leave us all scratching our heads.
First, it’s not true that blacks haven’t been somewhat represented in country music. I can sincerely say that I liked Charlie Pride (and I’m old enough to remember him on Hee Haw). I can sincerely say that I don’t even hear anything slightly racial in his classic songs. There’s no racial grievance, it’s just a man singing music that appeals to working class people who live in rural, particularly southern rural, areas of America. (And believe it or not there are indeed some black people who more or less identify with their white neighbors in that regard.)
But that doesn’t mean that country music is or ever was relevant to black culture. Most of the black people in this country who identify with country music LITERALLY identify with the white people singing it, and it’s not a racial thing at all for them. It IS cultural…they grew up surrounded by white people and adopted the norms of the people they lived around. Note, this isn’t something that’s at all common in areas with large black populations where blacks are anchored to their own people. It’s mostly a thing that occurs in super-rural areas with still-functional farmland and very small communities of tight-knit people.
I can’t for the life of me understand or comprehend any kind of demand for blacks to be more represented in music that so few of them understand. Charlie Pride worked because he came in and sang country music without an inkling of blackness to it. I challenge anybody reading this to play a Charlie Pride song to a young black person who has know idea who Charlie Pride even is, and ask them to identify the race of the singer. 99.9%, they’ll say it’s a redneck white guy.
The usual suspects with all of this BS don’t just want some black man or women to come in and dress and act like while people and sing music with all the white people aesthetics. They want to find some Beyonce-tier black women to incorporate twerking into line dancing and call it country music and fundamentally change it, and run it into the ground like they’ve done with every other genre.
I really enjoyed country music back in the Oughts. It felt to me like a surviving realm of White America (the only real America). But I began to hear the craptastic sounds of rap showing up at the margins and I did White Flight. Have not listened for years. The Subsaharans ruin everything they touch, but of course, the NiceWhites (and the Tribe) let them.
Looking for something else I was going to post here, I unfortunately found this scrap of crap. Read very little of it before bowing out. A pompous, college-educated black woman going on about ‘unexceptional white men’ and referring to herself imperious in the third person in purple prose. T
The racist scum are so used to being racist and getting away with it because of their…eh…was going to say ‘get out of jail free’ skin colour, but I suppose the opposite is true – that they no longer even notice they are BEING racist. Which is how normalised white people-hating has become in ravingly racist America.
https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/white-punks-singing-the-n-word-a-black-punks-incomplete-playlist/
I’m a fan of the late Merle Haggard. Now, we have “hick hop”. You’re right, Jim. Put country music out of its misery already.
Sadly–Merle got real PC at the end of his career. Among other things, he apologized for his classic song–Okie From Muskogee.
Merle let Willie Nelson talk him into becoming a dope smoking pot head and that turned out to be the biggest mistake of his life. I’ve read that Merle actually got so addicted to smoking marijuana towards the last few years of his life that he couldn’t go a single day without smoking that foul smelling weed.
I have no idea if Willie and Waylon’s influence also lead Haggard into using other drugs, but it would not surprise me if it did. That was the whole basis for that so-called ‘Outlaw Country’ movement. Nashville had a few C&W singers who were fans of the drug culture, which was polar opposite of the image of traditional country music singers. That’s not to say there had not been other singers who were pill poppers or drug addicts in the past, but their agents and the record label companies tried to keep the wraps on these kinds of activities in order to adhere to the desired wholesome image of the Country Music industry.
So, the Outlaw Country crowd wanted to flaunt their drug use and help make it seem cool and hip to their audiences. When in fact, it was destructive and invariably will ruin the lives of people who get hooked on drugs.
It’s funny how whenever blacks “Overcom racism” it’s because some Whites have handed them a huge carreer opportunity.
I was just wondering if Johnny Horton is considered to be a Country Music singer or is his a different genre? I especially love the songs “North to Alaska” and “The Battle of New Orleans”.
He’s country.
You hate to think of your local Hooters being built on the sacred burial grounds of Elizabeth Warren’s ancestors.
In a lot of ways, we have a better, more accurate and honest depiction of the 19th century than we do the 20th and, especially, the 21st because almost everyone kept meticulous journals, from the lowliest cavalry grunt to dirt farmer frontier persons.
They weren’t “journalists” (an Ojibway word meaning “liars with agendas”) nor were they writing anonymously on the worldwide web, an open invitation to dissemble.
Though education was minimal, somehow they wrote and spoke better English than your average over-educated American today.
If you happened upon murdered people in the Old West, how did you know if Indians killed them or not, besides the arrows? The Indians grotesquely mutilated their victims before, during and after death. Always. These weren’t isolated incidents.
Females of any age, including elderly, were gang-raped. They killed babies, tortured babies. Horribly mutilated someone as their spouses or loved ones were forced to watch.
Mens’ genitals cut off and shoved in their mouths wasn’t unusual. At all!
Is there anything comparable in history?
The bodies of the soldiers at Little Big Horn were looted and mutilated and defiled primarily by old squaws but don’t say “squaw” because that’s hate speech now.
That was widely reported at the time and people were rightfully aghast so did that make them Indianphobes?
What about the Indians who rode with the cavalry on virtually every military campaign against Indians, either as scouts or just along for the murder?
The Indians hated each others’ guts before anyone else got here.
War was their religion. They lost.
Two not-to-be-missed books on the Old West are Blood And Thunder: The Epic Story Of Kit Carson And The Conquest Of The American West and Empire Of The Summer Moon: Quanah Parker And The Rise And Fall Of The Comanches.
How remarkably shallow and disrespectful to anyone who lived through that, that someone would reference any of it for their next single.
“War was their religion. They lost.”
Yes. In eastern North America, as well, Indians of various tribes relished torturing their captors. Children along with women were strongly encouraged to join in, and the torture was developed into very elaborate, prolonged entertainments. And fIndian tribe committed genocide against Indian tribe, before and after the white man’s arrival.
And the sex roles enforced by many Indian tribes would cause today’s feminists to go apoplectic, to use a term of the era.
Yes-blacks are being infused into every area of our culture.
My favorite is having blacks portray whites in movies, TV and plays in roles that were historically about white people. How strange this goes on while the Media and blacks will use the term “cultural appropriation” if some deluded whitey does something like wear cornrows or dreadlocks.
Our society is going down the tubes, soon to crash and burn. Look around, the evidence is everywhere. It has been, and continues to be, totally corrupted. There will be no return to sanity in this country.
The irony of rappers and nigga is that they can use it towards friend or foe. Kind of defeats the purpose when everyone is one. Like the dilution of racist. Now it’s truly meaningless. Some embrace the term as a badge of honor and I get it. I’ve always been prejudiced against jackasses of all kinds only now my hackles really rise towards blacks. They’re trying to do to stock car racing what they’re trying with country. I’ve never been much of a fan of either but I regret the reflection on our society it displays.
Check out the song “Lonely Street” by Kansas and listen for what lyric is commonly changed now that we’re 40+ years later. Speaking the truth isn’t valued so much anymore. Race realism is one thing that keeps me going.
Hello, I thought Tyler Childers had some potential but then he began to support BLM. He started hanging around too many cocktail sipping, liberal producers. So did Chris Stapleton but to a lesser degree. The band who as far as I know hasn’t sold out is Whiskey Myers. Check out “Ballad of a Southern Man”. It has the lyric, “I still fly that Southern flag..”
Johnny Horton, Johnny Cash, Hank Williams Sr, were the best. Johnny Horton has a great album themed around United States history that I’ve enjoyed for years. Cash was sympathetic toward the red man in some of his songs but certainly not anti-white. As Merle and Cash got older their musical talent showed a different side that I really liked. Check out Merle’s “Where did America go?” And “America First”. Don’t forget old Ralph Stanley either. I’m an Appalachian so I have to throw him in there.
While traveling through Wyoming in 1990, I stopped in a bar in a town I can’t recall and went to play something on the juke box. I was a bit surprised and amused to see a song with the title “She Ran off with a Nigger”. I played it and it was just a typical country song. Even more surprising, I just now tried googling it and came up with several hits. Try it.
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