No music genre is as beholden to corporate radio as country music, and no form of music media is as conservative, aesthetically and politically, as corporate radio. Put two and two together, and it makes sense that no genre is more conservative than country music made for the radio an assembly-line product stuffed with references to patriotism and pickups, built by a massive industry centered in Nashville. That conventional wisdom accounts for the wide swaths of people whose response to seeing video of rising country star Morgan Wallen using the n-word last month was: “Is anyone surprised?”
The country industry’s answer to that question was both yes and no. As stars like Mickey Guyton and Maren Morris quickly pointed out, there’s at least a century’s worth of evidence that the genre was built by overt racism and discrimination to paraphrase them, Wallen’s racism
Vince Gill, Maren Morris, Ryan Hurd, Rissi Palmer Speak Out Against Country Music’s Lack of Diversity “Women in country music could make the same claim to some degree that Black artists could that they haven’t been made to feel welcome,” Gill said
Some of country music’s top voices recently spoke out against racism and the lack of artists of color on country radio, as part of CBS This Morning’s new series “Unifying America,” which aims to highlight people trying to cross the racial and cultural divide that separate so many Americans.
Vince Gill, a 21-time Grammy winner and the singer-songwriter behind country classics including “Whenever You Come Around” and “Go Rest High On That Mountain,” admitted to the outlet that he was “nervous” to speak on the topic. “Your intentions can be so good and then you can get just ripped.”
Country music's race problem became a hot topic in early February, but the roots of racial injustice in the industry go much deeper. Two Nashville writers unpack the history and recent responses.