How Wokeness is Infiltrating Country Music

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At a podcast,
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I'm your host, John Harris, as always. Thankful to be here. Thankful for your support, whether that's prayer support or financial support through Patreon or whatever it is.
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I'm just really thankful this morning for that. I mean, I woke up just thinking about how it's a blessing to be able to put out the amount of content that I put out and also to do all the things that many of you don't see behind the scenes.
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Documentaries, we actually, we're almost done with a documentary that's about to come out and it is, I'm excited about it.
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It is something very different than what I've been focusing on. It's about the Holdman Mennonite sect or group.
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It's an offshoot of the Mennonites, but there's some heretical beliefs that they have. And anyway, this whole thing came about organically, being in Grant, Nebraska, talking to a pastor there, realizing that's his mission field and probably the best way to reach them is to put something out, believe it or not, on YouTube because they're not supposed to watch it, but they do.
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And they'll watch stuff about themselves. And so we have just a great documentary.
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I flew out to Grant again. I did all the filming for this and it's almost done.
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And we have some other projects working on, but that one's about to come out. And that is just for the purity of the gospel.
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And for those who don't know, if you're a first time listener, I mean, the subject of today's episode might bring you here thinking you're gonna solely get information on whether or not country music is woke and what's the direction of country music.
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But I want you to know about the gospel of Jesus Christ. That's the prime motivator for me to do this podcast, to defend the integrity of the word of God.
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And the word of God contains the most, the greatest message of all time, which is that we are sinners.
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It starts, you have to have a pre -understanding here that we are sinners. We violated the law of a holy, just God.
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And we are rightfully in judgment, we stand in judgment.
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He is so holy, he can't look at our sin and our law breaking. That would be things like our lying, taking his name in vain, adultery and lust.
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And I mean, you just look at the 10 commandments and you can see clearly what his law is. And we have idols, we covet, we take things that don't belong to us as sinful people.
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And the Lord will justly punish those who break his law.
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But the good news is, this is the gospel, the good news is that Jesus Christ came to this earth 2000 years ago, lived the perfect life that we cannot live and died as a substitutionary atonement.
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That means he died paying the penalty, like if we had a debt at a bank, he paid the penalty that we made, that we could never pay back, trillions of dollars, let's say and he just came in and paid it.
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And if we repent, if we turn from our sin and put our faith in Jesus Christ, we are guaranteed a right relationship with God, being filled with the
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Holy Spirit, and most importantly of all, the forgiveness of sins. And that is the only way to gain expiation for our sins.
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There are all kinds of ways social justice warriors are looking to ameliorate white guilt or male guilt or whatever the case may be, heterosexual guilt, all these substitutes for original sin and salvation, but there is no way to actually once and for all deal with your sin, real sin, but to come to Jesus Christ.
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So that is the message of the gospel and that's the message we wanna get out there through this documentary, to a group that is believing in some kind of a works righteousness, that they can gain
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God's favor through their good works and that it's possible for them to be good enough. It's not possible, it's not possible.
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One person was good enough and that was Jesus Christ. So I'm just thankful for all the supporters out there. There's just a lot of things right now going on, positive things, conversations behind the scenes, some that I can't share right now, but plans being made and I'm just,
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I'm thankful. So wanted to mention that. There's a lot of political things going on right now too.
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There's some in Christianity that I'm saving. There's actually a bunch of stuff this week.
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For those who haven't heard of this book, there's a popular book in Christianity called A Rise and Triumph of the
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Modern Self by Carl Truman. I read through that book and I have some thoughts on it.
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I'll probably share. There's a bunch of other stuff, but today I wanna keep it to one particular subject and this is not related to, well, it's tangentially related, but it's not directly related to what
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I usually talk about. I usually talk about how social justice is making inroads into evangelical groups, broadly speaking, right?
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Well, it's making inroads into everything and I've noticed for the past couple of years, it's made significant inroads into country music and I like country music.
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I know many of you probably don't in the audience and many of you probably do, but since it's my podcast and I wanna talk about this topic because I'm interested in it, that's what we're gonna talk about.
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And I've noticed for the last few years, there's little things and I'm not paying attention to it as closely as I used to.
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I don't really listen to a lot of country music radio anymore, I'll turn it on occasionally just to see if there's anything new and the ratio is terrible.
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I mean, it's like, for someone who likes more traditional sounding country and for someone who likes good content in your country music,
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I'm like, man, maybe one out of every 15 songs is a decent song. I mean, the ratio just keeps getting worse and worse.
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And I've noticed though, as I keep an eye on the genre and I'm somewhat familiar with many of the artists, at least, and maybe not all the new ones, but at least many of the mainstream popular ones, that a lot of things have been changing.
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I noticed after the George Floyd's death, I think it was the next year, it was either the
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ACM or CMA awards. I don't really watch them anymore, but I just noticed one of them had happened and I went to the
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YouTube channel, I think it was ACM. And I just wanted to see all the performances to see if there was anything interesting that I would wanna check out.
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And what I noticed was when I went there, just about every single performance was some big country music artist.
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Generally, I mean, most country music artists happen to be Western European in their lineage, they're white.
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And they were paired off with a black artist, generally a black artist
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I had never heard of. And it was a duet of some kind, and sometimes, I mean, I think there was
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R &B or rather hip hop and just styles that you don't normally hear in country music.
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You're hearing a lot more of that, I guess, lately. There's more of a mix. I mean, there's a lot of rock influence and there's a lot of just hip hop influence that's starting to come in.
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But I just thought that was a curious thing. I just thought this, and it's obvious to me why they were doing it.
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I mean, this is trying to project to everyone, we're not racists. Look, we look at all the black artists that we're platforming.
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And these are people that would never have a platform because most of the country music fans had never heard of them.
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So it was solely because, or mostly I should say, probably because they were black.
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They could sing, but they were black, that they were given these positions, this platform.
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And so nothing, absolutely nothing wrong. And I'm totally fine.
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And many of actually black artists I like in country music, totally fine with a black person being a country music artist.
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But it was obvious that they were taking artists that didn't, they hadn't climbed the ranks normally artists have to climb to get to the point of having that platform.
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They were just kind of, it was given to them because of another motivation.
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And so I saw that and said, okay, yeah, I mean, that kind of makes sense. Well, I noticed too, there's been some other interesting changes.
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For instance, the ACM Awards this year, banning any display, even if I guess you have a
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T -shirt of any Confederate type imagery.
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You can't have that on your shirt or you can't bring a flag in there or anything. Now, for country music, this is,
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I mean, you go back 10 years and there were even still a lot of very popular mainstream country music artists like Brad Paisley, Trace Adkins, Bradley Gilbert.
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There were just a lot of guys who used Justin Moore, their bands or displayed at their conference somewhere there would be imagery,
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Confederate type imagery because that has been in the genre for a long time in certain sectors.
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And it's just because the genre primarily, they're fans and the artists that come from, well, the artists that get popular are generally
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Southerners and they're generally traditional people and they sing about, generally, it used to be more traditional kind of things.
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And so they're in touch with their past. And I mean, you see a lot more, I think, just generally American flags and stuff these days, but there was some of that around.
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Well, now it's banned. And I mean, in a sense, that's a free speech issue. And I just thought that's so strange to go that quickly.
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For those who understand the genre, who know a lot about the genre, you know that country music was holding onto and still holds onto a lot of traditional things that other genres had long given up.
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And so anyway, there were little things like that. And I probably can't even think of all of them off the top of my head right now, all these little things that started,
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I mean, there was a major artist, I remember like a year or two ago, who did this whole apology thing for using that kind of symbolism.
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And it was, and I know Maren Morris is another country music artist who's gone around talking about just how her goals are to platform these minority artists who are somehow in the sinuation is discriminated against by the industry.
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And so, and this is how it started in Christian circles as well, and the Southern Baptists and evangelical denominations.
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And you can look at it in sports, you can look at it in so many different arenas, it's the same move every time.
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It's this critique, being critical theory, right? You're being critical of this particular industry, this organization, these artists, these or pastors or leaders, whoever they may be in the particular group, and then it's ripping them down.
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It's reading into actions that they've taken, motivations that may or may not have been there.
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Often they're not there, there's no racist motivation, but it's reading into their actions or reading into a state of affairs, it must be racist.
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You know, why aren't black artists represented? It must be discrimination, that's the only explanation. They're getting, they're trying to make it in the industry, but they just can't make it.
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So we need to diversify, we need to force some kind of quote unquote equality.
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And of course this, it generally, it seems at least with evangelicalism, it started there.
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And I think with country music, it's kind of starting there, but then it branches out to other areas real quick. It can get into the homosexuals and how they're underrepresented and they're discriminated against and the themes of the music they can't relate to.
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And so we got to do something about it. And we've seen some major country music artists start to go to bat for the
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LGBT groups out there. I think of Miranda Lambert, I think just recently did a whole song for some show about like queer cowboys or something, it's weird.
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I'm thinking who watches this stuff? That's why it's weird to me. And like who, what, this is something where it's obvious to me, it is a forced, it is a political messaging.
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This isn't market driven. This is more political than anything else.
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Trying to show solidarity with the political movement. And there could be various motivations for that.
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There could be corporate executives believe in the movement. It could be just trying to hedge against people accusing you of racism or homophobia or any of those things.
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There's a number of motivations that could be, but one thing it's not is driven by the actual fans.
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And so anyway, I've seen a lot of this stuff. Actually, a lot of other things are coming to mind right now. Like there was a song last summer,
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Am I the Only One by Aaron Lewis that became I think number one single. I mean, it was really popular.
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Radios wouldn't, radio stations would not play the song. And it would talk about how America is basically going down the tubes.
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It talked about monuments coming down and lack of American pride and all. And just am
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I the only one that's angry about this stuff? Radio stations wouldn't touch it. Toby Keith had a similar song,
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Happy Birthday America, that also was pretty popular and radio stations wouldn't touch that single.
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Why not? Fans are saying they like this stuff. I mean, record sales are, it's being sold on Amazon and iTunes and it's breaking, it's outdoing the other songs that are being played on the radio, but they won't play those things.
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So there's just a lot of stuff like that. And I wanted to play for you today, for those interested in this, a video.
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This is, let's see if I can pull it up here. This is something, and this is the second video along these lines
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I've seen. This is called Unapologetically Black Country, the
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Black Opry, Country Music in Nashville Story. So this is put out there by Nashville Public Television, Nashville Public Television.
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And this is the second documentary type, themed documentary like this that I've seen.
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It's the second one. And so there was one I saw a few months ago that was just how black people are underrepresented.
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This is because of racism, clearly. And I remember I actually responded on Facebook and I just made the point that there are black country music artists, but there are also, you could also make the case that quote unquote white people are underrepresented in hip hop.
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And yeah, you could come up with examples of white artists, but the ratio is way in favor of black people in that particular genre.
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And in country music, yes, it's way in favor of white people in that particular genre, but I can point to you,
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I can point out black artists to you. Darius Rucker is a very popular black artist today. And he's not the only one, there's a few.
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And so I just thought, well, by the same logic, you could say hip hop's racist, right?
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But no one's saying that, no one's making a documentary on it. It's only focused on country music because it's just too white, it's a problem.
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So anyway, this is the second attempt that I've seen to, this must be just a popular thing, but I wanna play this and just,
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I'll stop it at certain points and I'll just discuss it. It's about six minutes long and it's called, like I said,
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Unapologetically Black Country. What would
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I say to a person that says that country music isn't for black people? I would first start off saying that first of all, country music is for everyone.
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I would say that first, because that's what I believe is for everyone. But particularly for them to say it's not for black people,
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I'd say we are country music. ♪ Just a couple of kids, always up to no good.
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♪ We actually grew up in small town, Versailles, Kentucky. It sounds as small as it is.
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Country music is just kind of ingrained in it. It's, there are definitely, you know, people out there who consider it their guilty pleasure.
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A lot of black people will call it their guilty pleasure. ♪ I don't care. ♪ All right, I'll stop here.
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Why would it be a guilty pleasure if black people are country music? And this is, you know, why do they feel like they kind of,
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I mean, I don't know. I mean, I don't want to read too much into that, but do you have to hide it? Is it like, is it like something to be ashamed of that you like this?
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So it just, the narrative seems to be, there's tension there in my mind. So if it is, if black people are country music and they're just, there's so many black people listening and are fans of country music, but they're just kept out of the industry because of racism, you know, why is it a guilty pleasure?
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And there's, the whole premise of the video starts off with this objection that country music isn't for black people.
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This is where I would push back a little and say, who says that? Who says country music is not for black people?
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Now, you could probably find someone out there. You might be able to find a few people out there who might say that. That is very possible in the country music fan base.
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But I would say the vast majority. I don't know of one person of friends that I've, that I had, people
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I met who like country music. I've been to a lot of country music concerts. I don't know of anyone who would ever say something like that or think something like that.
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So it starts off with this kind of, it's in battle mode that there's this, this objection out there.
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And I just don't know that that's a, that's not a common objection. That's not, but the video, what follows is a response to it.
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So it's, you know, hold on, let's try to, let's take away these misconceptions.
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Country music is, black people are country music. And so it's going to try to tighten that connection up as we go through the video.
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So it starts here and it just, people listening can't see, so I'll just read it. It says early 17th century
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African captives brought to the United States through the West Indies played an early version of the banjo.
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And that's true. That's, and I've pointed that out before that, you know, bluegrass music and stuff that uses the banjo, you know, if you trace it all back, you do wind up,
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I mean, there was at least a contribution there from slaves who came to the United States. They brought with them.
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And there is a blending of genres. There is 12 bar blues is used in a lot of, or used to be used in a lot of country music.
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There's instrumentation and there's, especially when you see this with church music, with gospel music, there is a lot of influence of one upon the other, of Africans who came over to the
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United States and then brought with them their music. And then Europeans who had come over previously had brought their music and they did mix together in some ways.
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And so that's true, but how many, who is known for playing the banjo, the five stream banjo today?
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Well, it's mainly people in Appalachia, right? It's mainly people in very, they tend to be very white areas and it's most notably heard in bluegrass music.
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And so it's not something, I'm not gonna go to a lot of black neighborhoods and probably hear them playing black people on their porch playing the banjo.
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I might sometimes, but it's interesting how cultures develop, it's something that has, it may have been brought over or developed by one group of people, but it's taken by another group.
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A good example of this is actually the Irish music, traditional Irish music. Traditional Irish music really shouldn't have a banjo.
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It's something, but it does. Today even, Irish music has a banjo. You think of even some of the
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English folk music like Mumford and Sons and stuff, they use a banjo. Why do they use a banjo, right? That's not actually really traditional
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English music, but they just, they liked the sound and they took it.
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So like the Beatles took a lot of American music and then sold it back to us. And then that's how a lot of cultures work.
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Sometimes developments happen in other areas that the place in which the development first took place has long forgotten about it.
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So anyway, that is a true statement that they're making there, but it doesn't mean that today that's the state of affairs.
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Like, oh, there's all these black people who are really good on the banjo, and look, they're being kept out of the bluegrass genre.
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They're not making it to country music, the country music shows, because even though they're so good at it, they're just kept out.
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That's not happening. And I think what this video is gonna do as we watch it is they're gonna keep tightening that connection and you're creating this narrative that it's black people who own country music, who made country music, and then it was stolen from them.
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I get told all the time that country music isn't for black people, but the problem is that we invented it.
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And so to say that black people don't have a place in something that was created off of our history, is actually very
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American. This is not just a country music problem. If you look across all kinds of art forms and industries, that's typically what happens.
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Black people create something and then they get pushed out of it. Okay, that's the founder of the Black Opry. Now, so think about this.
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There's a segregation, I guess, I don't, I mean, they have, there's a Grand Ole Opry alternative,
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Grand Ole Opry being the main kind of area, place that country music artists go to perform.
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It's prestigious in some ways. And now there's a Black Opry for black artists because they need some representation.
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But listen to what she says. Black people invented country music, full stop. Black people invented it.
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And it was stolen from them. And that's just America. That's how America works. And this is what happens all the time.
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And it was, they were ripped off. And this is, I want you to just notice as we go through this and you hear more, the top -down approach that many of these people have, that things are just controlled from a top -down, someone is in the driver's seat making decisions.
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It can't be organic. It can't be that different cultures mixed in different ways at different times throughout history, developments took place and sure, black people gave us in country music, things like at least the original banjo and maybe some 12 -bar blues and some blues influence and stuff.
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And then other artists took that and developed it further in the country music genre.
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And it can't be that. It can't be a development over time organically.
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It's gotta be very, it's very ideological. It's very cut and dry. We invented it, they stole it.
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As if there's two very monolithic groups of people here that are, and very defined decisions are being made almost instantly.
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It's not, it can't be this development over time that's organic in nature. And that's how ideologues generally think.
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And once you understand how ideologues think, you spot it everywhere. I'll show you another place in this video where it comes up again.
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But so here's representation in country music. Country radio plays 2020, 2002 to 2020.
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Almost 11, over 11 ,000 total songs played. And then 1 % or 133 songs by black artists.
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So it's about 1 % of the songs that are, I guess, written are by black artists.
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So black people are way underrepresented. That's the point. It's trying to weave for you a narrative of this must be motivated by racism.
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But they still haven't given evidence for this, that it's actually motivated by racism. There's been a lot of statements made, but they haven't given you evidence you can sink your teeth into.
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♪ Turn on the radio, country hits ♪ ♪ Grab you a pinch, man, take that dip ♪ ♪ Call up your boys, tell them where to head ♪ ♪
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And go party on down at the Bullshit ♪ ♪ Cowboys love them tractors ♪ To say being black in country music, we've always been there.
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We just haven't been there, you know? But we've always been, our presence and our aura has always been a genre.
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We just haven't been there as a physical presence. And so now to be out there physically and the way we are able to do it now, we've always been there.
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We've just never been in the front of it. So what's that supposed to mean? We've always been there.
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We listen. We are country music. We invented country music. Country music owes everything to us, apparently, but they've just never given us the privilege of being out in front.
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One of the biggest barriers that black people have faced as far as being included in country music is just the way that the industry started.
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Like, that's where it goes back to for me. Back in the 1920s when Billboard started doing the charts, they had all the songs on the charts and then they realized that black people and white people were on the same chart.
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And we're like, we can't have that. So they separated the music into the hillbilly charts and the race records.
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And literally the only separation of that was the color of their skin. Let me just talk to you about this real quick because when
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I heard that, I thought, well, again, there's a top -down approach here that she thinks that there was some people with some very racist motives.
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That's the insinuation who just created these separate genres to keep black and white people separate.
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And it was with the intention of keeping black people out of country music.
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So Ralph Peer is the guy who is credited with inventing this term, the black race, or it's really race, race records, race music.
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And that was, he worked for OK Records and he was marketing a lot of these black musicians and stuff to broader audiences, to white audiences, to listen, inviting them to come and listen to this.
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You had though a number of people get involved in this and many of them were black. So you have
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Harry Pace in 1921 who founds Black Swan Records. And Harry Pace is a black guy and founding a record company that's specifically for black people.
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You have Winston Holmes, 1924, forming Merit. And I mean, he said the only record label on the market today owned and controlled by the race.
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And African -American or black news outlets, they would use the term race records.
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They used it and they were fine with it. And there was, what I'm saying is there were black people at the time who were proud of this.
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And this was something that they wanted to make better, to develop, to market, to white audiences even.
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And I mean, at the time, I mean, you're talking the 1920s, I mean, black population is probably what around,
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I would guess around 10 % of the population, somewhere in there. And so they're marketing it though to this broader audience.
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And you have others, you have J. Mayo Williams, 1924,
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Paramount recording manager of race artists. And so he, for a major label, for a major record company, and I mean, this is when all the record companies are getting started, but he's marketing this stuff.
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And this, the designation of race records really started to take a nosedive during the
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Great Depression when radio just became really popular and it just fizzled out.
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It just, it wasn't, I mean, think about it this way. If you're marketing, if you have a radio station, and if the vast majority of the people that are listening to the radio station are probably white, and they're probably, their preference would be probably to listen to other genres, then you're probably gonna cater to that.
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And so, and the, I mean, AM radio is a lot different than FM too. We have to go back into the past and take the past on its own terms.
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A lot of these radio stations went for long distances. People could listen all over the country and it was, they had a broad geographic audience.
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And so the Great Depression kind of destroyed the market for race records.
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And then in 1949, so post -World War II, what had been race records gets re -designated rhythm and blues.
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And so, and then hillbilly records becomes country music. Now, is there a difference?
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That's what I would ask. Is there a difference between rhythm and blues and country music, like qualitatively, or just definitionally, is there a difference between those two things?
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And I think there is. I think there is a difference between them. You can listen to them and you can hear a difference between them.
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It doesn't mean that there's not influences between the two, but there is a difference. So I'm not making an argument that the two should be separated.
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I'm just saying, that's what happened. Just historically, that's what happened. And it was an organic process.
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Could there have been racism involved in certain parts of this? Yes, there could have been. But is that the sole cause as it's being portrayed here?
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Is that what led to, and here's the big thing you gotta realize, is that what led to the state of affairs today?
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And the answer, I think, has to be no. How would that be the thing?
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How is it that racism as the sole cause is the thing that is affecting the 1 % of black songwriters that get played today and that disproportion?
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Well, the first artist introduced on the stage of the Grand Ole Opry in 1927 was a black man,
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D. Ford Bailey. So this is not the first black artist. This is the first artist, harmonica player,
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D. Ford Bailey, 1927. Well, this is a time it's all supposed to be segregated, right? But there's obviously, it wasn't completely segregated.
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There were differences between the styles that were developing at that time.
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Charlie Pride is probably one of the greatest country music, classic country music artists of all time.
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31 number one singles for RCA in the 1960s. It's in the 60s, guys.
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Charlie Pride's a black guy. And I like a lot of Charlie Pride stuff. I have some of his stuff on my phone. I'll listen to it at times and you should check him out.
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But you don't need a whole bunch of artists to prove that, look at the percentage.
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Now it's 50 -50 or something, or now it's whatever the, it's proportionate according to population.
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There's 16 % of the blacks in America. So 16 % of the artists in country music need to be like, well, you gotta think of the fans.
33:16
You gotta think who's listening, where are they? And most of them are probably gonna be white.
33:22
That's just the, they're gonna be out in rural areas. It doesn't mean that there aren't black people listening to country music, there are. But the way that, the impression that you're given from a video like this is that it's, like it should almost be like 50 -50 or something, right?
33:37
And it's not. And it should just be so much higher than it is. And they don't argue for it, why?
33:44
Has anyone run the numbers and done a study how many black people actually are fans of country music? How many black artists actually try to get record deals in country music as compared to white people?
33:57
These are the questions that aren't being answered, but those would be the more significant if you're gonna try to go down that road.
34:03
But we have examples that this wasn't completely segregated, these genres.
34:10
I mean, in the 70s, you have even more non -white artists, people like Freddy Fender. And today, of course, there's a number of them that, of black country music artists.
34:24
So again, it's not the majority, but it shows that it's not, it is possible.
34:33
And that should be, you should be suspicious of the charge of racism, that the current state of affairs and the disproportion is due to something that happened way back in the 20s when record companies decided to market their music by designating one genre, hillbilly music, and one genre, race records.
34:57
You should be very suspicious of that because there's been a lot of development since that time, number one. And even that narrative breaks down.
35:08
That wasn't even followed 100%. And also, there's differences between the two musics that developed from that.
35:17
And there's nothing wrong with that. A lot of the rockabilly artists started fusing these things, like Elvis.
35:23
I mean, he grew up in Memphis, well, two below than Memphis, and he brought in a lot of influence from a lot of the black artists in his dress and in his sound.
35:33
And what you got was one of the most popular forms of music at the time.
35:39
So let's keep going here. Let's finish the video. Being black in country music just means to be yourself at all times.
35:49
You choose what you want to do. You choose what makes you feel best. And sometimes there are lots of people who don't get it and they don't get you and they expect certain things from you.
35:59
So it's really no different than being black in this country. Racial disparity, it says, in the
36:05
Black Lives Matter flag. Events during the height of the pandemic highlighted historical negligence that black people have endured socially in the
36:12
United States. By the way, for those watching, do these, the artists - I think it was partially the pandemic that impacted -
36:18
Do the artists, do they look like country, I mean, some of them do, like the video of the cowboy guy, but I mean, a lot of it too is just its style.
36:27
I mean, it's rural life. That was at least what country music was about. I mean, it's in the name, it's country. So you don't generally dress like you're in the city, but maybe that's all changing too,
36:39
I don't know. So let's listen to the founder of the Black Opry.
36:47
The country kind of taking a harder look at country music, but more so I feel like it was the murder of George Floyd.
36:53
That was what particularly sparked me to look at country music differently because I've always loved it,
36:59
I've always known I don't fit, but I've also compartmentalized that. The death of George Floyd, the death of George Floyd affected the way she viewed country music.
37:08
What did the death of George Floyd not affect? It's a pretty, it's amazing to me to see how we have to take down monuments in unrelated states because of something that happened in Minneapolis.
37:28
Everything's connected to George Floyd somehow. The police department in New York City is connected to George Floyd.
37:33
Country music genre connected to George Floyd. There was so much uncertainty at the very beginning of the pandemic.
37:45
We did not know if we were ever gonna play a live show again. We did not know if we were going to make any more money ever doing this thing we love.
37:55
So the difficulties of the pandemic and how I was able to go through that, I was like, okay, if I'm gonna go here,
38:00
I'm gonna take a picture with this person. When I go here, I'm gonna do a little quick video. I'm gonna show people that I'm a pro. I'm a presence in this town.
38:07
I'm a presence in this genre of music and that it's okay to be that way. Says the
38:17
Black Opry begins. The Black Opry revenue is launched. This is April, 2021. Despite the lingering pandemic, the revenue continues to work to change the culture of country music, to change the culture of country music.
38:29
That's the whole point, to make it something that it's not. But the whole thing seems less organic.
38:42
It's not framed in a positive way, right? It's not framed in, we have something to offer.
38:47
We like country music and let's get together and jam. Let's have a good time. If you wanna start your own organization that's gonna specifically help introduce the world to a new group of artists who have a special sound or something, that's not the way this is being portrayed.
39:07
The way this is being portrayed is there's something nefarious in Nashville, keeping Black country singers from getting ahead.
39:15
And it's necessary to change the whole culture of country music to have an organization like the Black Opry.
39:21
So you've now, it's segregated. You have the Opry and you have now the Black Opry. Even though the Grand Ole Opry, the very first person to ever perform at the
39:30
Opry, apparently, is D. Ford Bailey. And even though today it's not uncommon to see performers who are
39:42
Black on the stage of the Black Opry, or sorry, the Grand Ole Opry, you still, the percentage is off, so we need to have the
39:50
Black Opry. And that's the whole goal, change the culture of country music. Once you change the culture, though, in a way, using this method to really shame them, to try, from a position of moral superiority, make them ashamed of looking too white, quote unquote, then this isn't really a cultural development so much as it is an anti -culture.
40:24
This is a, it is, the culture that's there needs to be destroyed. It needs to be remade because it was constructed on the wrong thinking, the thinking that led to white artists primarily.
40:40
So where are you gonna locate that racism? That's the question. Where is it? How are you going, is it the record company labels?
40:48
Is it the producers? Is it the artists themselves? Is it the fans that are demanding this? Is it the radio stations?
40:54
Is it the concert venues? Is it all of them? Is it just systemic? If it's systemic and if it's, there's no actual examples you can give today where someone, because they're black, is being discriminated against, not given a gig, not given a, they're not able to cut an album, not given an audition.
41:17
If you don't have any of that, but it's just, well, it's just there and the proof is in the pudding, then this creates a hyper -critical awareness now.
41:28
The industry is going to have to examine themselves and do whatever it takes to bring about a new ratio of white to black or white to Asian or white to Hispanic or Latino artists.
41:41
They're gonna have to, and maybe you could say men and women and heterosexuals and homosexuals.
41:48
I mean, it could go into all sorts of areas, but it's gonna be the industry policing itself to get to this point.
41:56
And that's gonna be the change. That's what we've seen in all these other arenas. That's the change of the culture. That's the introduction of a new kind of sin.
42:12
The sin of not having a diverse enough staff, not diverse enough leadership, not diverse enough group of artists, not diverse enough, whatever.
42:24
And it's sinful, it's wrong. It's evidence of evil if it doesn't meet a certain percentage, whatever that percentage is.
42:32
They're not really telling you what the expectation should be. So, I mean, that's awfully convenient because then it can be, you can kind of shift that goal if you want and you can never really achieve it.
42:43
But that's what they're talking about when they talk about this. And that's what we've seen in all these other industries and organizations.
42:48
And we've seen it within Christianity. That's exactly what happens. So I started the
43:00
Black Opry because I'm a fan of country music. And I think that's a part of the story that a lot of people miss.
43:07
Think about it. I'm a fan of country music. I'm a fan of this horribly racist industry that stole from Black people and took their music and then profited off of it and then denies
43:20
Black people entry. I'm a fan of that. It's just, it's interesting, right?
43:26
It's the same kind of dynamic you see it like when I talk about in Christianity, like, you know,
43:32
Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary or something where I went to school. It's like, we just hate so much the history of the
43:40
Southern Baptist Convention and even our school to some extent. The history that's here is so bad.
43:48
It's so bad. But then in the same breath sometimes, it's like, and how much we love
43:55
Southern Baptists and we want to... And so the thing is you can love something and you can see issues with that something.
44:06
That's possible. And want to correct things. That's possible, right? We can do that with a lot of different things.
44:11
I love my country. I see a lot of issues with my country. I wanna correct those things. But when you get into ideology, it's pretty quick.
44:19
You get into... What happens is you start developing total criticisms of things. So in other words, nothing's left out.
44:26
It's systemic, right? It's just the Southern Baptist Convention has a problem, let's say with abuse or with racism or evangelicalism has a problem with these things.
44:36
And so we gotta take this, do this knee -jerk reaction and centralize authority and take these drastic actions in order to correct this.
44:45
And shame everyone in the process. And make out like the organization is just definitionally fundamentally filled with these attitudes of oppression somehow.
44:57
And yet at the same time and in the same breath, how proud we are of our denomination, how great our schools are, how we love to be
45:06
Southern Baptists or whatever. And those who are saying that there's a problem here that social justice is making inroads, let's say, they just don't love
45:16
Southern Baptists. We need to get rid of them. They shouldn't be involved.
45:22
I'm remembering a tweet right now from, man, who was it?
45:30
James Merritt, I think it was like a year ago. It was last year, it was last fall I remember talking about myself and Russell Fuller and the
45:37
Southern Baptist doesn't need people like this. And I've seen that since a number of tweets like that where people in the
45:45
SBC are just upset that anyone would have a criticism for the SBC. And yet that's exactly what they do, right?
45:52
Their whole shtick is that the SBC is fundamentally this horrible organization.
45:58
But look, we're the saviors who came along and we're gonna change it all because we really love it. It's weird and it's the same dynamic
46:06
I see in this video. It's like, I'm a fan of country music. I love it, this horrible industry. There seems to be at least tension in that narrative.
46:15
You don't have to be a fan. No one's putting a gun to your head saying you need to be a fan of this genre, right?
46:21
You don't have to be a part of the Southern Baptist Convention. You don't have to be part of any of these organizations if they're really as bad as you make them out to be.
46:27
I mean, it seems like an argument for closing shop and starting something new. But instead there's a desire to take it over, to fundamentally change the organizations, to take it over and not to change, quote unquote, abuse or racism or the things that they're complaining about, but to change other things fundamentally, to change really ultimately the power structures of these organizations, to be the launching pad for a new hierarchy to develop of, quote unquote, oppressed voices, but it's gonna be people like this who have been the pioneers of agitating the organization, of showing, of talking about how bad it is and trying to bring attention to that so that they can then, they eventually become the ones who are in a position of authority on what needs to be done to change the organization.
47:21
It gives them power. It does, it gives them clout. They become often the means by which these organizations can now somehow prove in this woke corporatism that they are not racist or sexist anymore.
47:36
It's why the whole Caring Well Initiative, I keep drawing these parallels because much of the audience I know is familiar with the
47:41
Southern Baptist Convention, but it's part of the reason for the Caring Well Initiative and how it functioned with all these quote unquote, abuse survivors and then
47:50
Rachel Denhollander being one of the primary movers and shakers in this, of leading the charge for what everything the
47:58
Southern Baptist Convention needs to do to change its culture, to not be this horrible place anymore that's rife with abuse.
48:06
You need to listen to us. Well, who becomes, who is in charge of the steering wheel at that point?
48:12
Well, it's abuse advocates, it's abuse survivors, it's these organizers, it's these activists. And you see the same thing here.
48:18
This individual, and hopefully this statement will make it more clear than anything else is what I'm leading up to.
48:24
This individual here and some of the people you're seeing in this video promote this narrative. They're not lovers of country music, lovers of the art form, the tradition, they're not, their contribution is not the music primarily.
48:44
Their contribution is activism. That's who these people are. They're activists. They are there not to make the music genre better because they love the genre and they're coming on.
48:58
Think about it this way. If there's someone you know who's struggling with a sin or something, right? They got a problem somewhere.
49:04
Legitimately so, you come alongside them, you bear their burdens, you help them, you contribute. It's not that, that's not what these people are doing.
49:12
These people are coming with the condemnation. This is a horrible institutional organization.
49:19
Look to us. We are the ones with the key to solving these problems. That's political, that's activism.
49:26
That's not, it's not art, it's political. It's in a different category, but it's posing as art. And that's what has happened throughout all these industries and organizations and various entities.
49:38
It's always been that, just about. In every circumstance I'm thinking of, it starts with,
49:44
I'm a friend of the organization. I'm, I really just wanna come alongside, but really buried in the details is that's not who this person is.
49:54
They are an activist in the organization who's there to fundamentally transform what the organization is.
50:00
They're not satisfied to start another one that does the same kind of thing. They have to have control.
50:07
For some reason, the obsession is we must have control of the power structures that are already in place.
50:13
The hierarchies that already exist, we must rise to the top of. And so that's, I'm telling you, that's what the play is here.
50:22
And it's not about ultimately getting rid of, quote unquote, racism. You can be black and perform at the
50:28
Grand Ole Opry. There isn't a problem there. They don't have evidence that there's a problem there. It is, so forming an
50:35
Opry alternative is weird. Why do that? It's to agitate. It's to create the impression there's a big problem at the
50:41
Grand Ole Opry. It's to bully from a privileged location.
50:47
It's to gain the attention from the media. And in this trailer, whoever views this.
50:54
Now, there's a lot more views on Facebook because I think they promoted it. There's only like 111 views here. I'm giving this video way more views than it has on YouTube.
51:01
But it's to bring about a fundamental restructuring of the organization, just like when
51:09
Obama said he wants to fundamentally transform America. I really, really love country music.
51:15
Everything that's come out from all kinds of artists, but I never saw myself represented in it.
51:23
And so I never felt like I had a place in it. So it was something I kind of enjoyed very privately, even though it was a really big part of my life.
51:30
So the Black Opry was created in an attempt to connect with other people that looked like me that enjoyed this kind of music.
51:37
Can you imagine if white people did that in like hip hop or something? We're gonna create like a white hip hop group because we think white people need to connect with each other because of the percentages are off.
51:49
I mean, white people aren't represented and there's a lot of white people who listen to hip hop. I bet you the percentages of that are way different.
51:55
Like I bet you a lot more percentage -wise of white people listen to hip hop than black people listening to country music.
52:01
I am willing to bet a lot on that if I was a betting man. But can you imagine an organization that came along?
52:08
I mean, they would be labeled the Klan immediately. They're white supremacists, white whatever. But it's somehow acceptable in this particular context.
52:18
And it's so heroic, right? So important work that they're doing here. Why could black artists not like, what was preventing them from connecting before?
52:33
And if this helps black artists connect, is it to build an alternative hierarchy?
52:39
Because that wouldn't seem to be the best way to transform an industry. You would want to try to ingrain yourself in the already existing power structure, wouldn't you?
52:49
Or structure of influence, not start a new one. But what this does, like I said, is
52:55
I think it gives the, it just, it's a launching pad. It gives the impression that there's so much racism, you needed a safe space, so to speak, for all these black artists, because they just can't get ahead in the normal, through the normal channels.
53:13
But you have people like Kane Brown, you have people like Darius Rucker, who are, who have made it through these channels, and are quite popular.
53:23
And by the way, with primarily white audiences who are paying to listen to them, right?
53:29
Is that racism? It seems like the opposite. That'd be evidence that it's not racism. So the whole thing really, they haven't given evidence that this is necessary.
53:41
It's an assumption that it's necessary. And, you know,
53:46
I don't know about all these artists. I don't, most of these people aren't people I've really heard of. I do know there is, with woke corporatism, there's definitely a bias in that industry, in Nashville now, towards more of a social justice agenda.
54:04
So, you know, they're already moving in that direction, but it's not enough.
54:12
It's just not enough. A lot of artists though, this is the interesting thing to me too, I was thinking about this, a lot of artists who are more conservative, think of like Buddy Brown, okay?
54:22
Super conservative country artists, millions of views on YouTube. He'll never get play on the radio, probably.
54:33
Or someone like, I'm thinking of the, oh man,
54:39
I can't remember his name now. Super conservative, or I should say, traditional sounding artist, who has tons of views on YouTube.
54:49
I think I'm gonna pull up Colter Wall. Tons of views. I mean, you'd think he'd be on the radio. He's not gonna be on the radio.
54:55
It doesn't match what they're looking for. So are they going around, are traditional sounding artists, or political conservatives, who are country music artists, are they going around talking about how they're so discriminated against in the industry?
55:12
Buddy Jewel and Buddy Brown, and I guess you have to be Buddy. And I don't know,
55:19
Aaron Lewis, and Toby Keith, are they gonna start their own thing, where they're like, our songs aren't getting played much anymore, or we can't even break into the industry, because it's so woke now.
55:30
We need to do our own thing. They don't do that kind of thing. They just say, okay, whatever, I'll just be big on YouTube, or I'll be big on iTunes.
55:38
I'll do my own thing. If people like to listen, they like to listen. That's generally how it works. And then you find them somehow through that, if you wanna listen to that music.
55:48
But you don't have Aaron Watson and Colter Wall doing the same thing from the traditional angle.
55:55
That country music has left behind traditional country music, and sounds a lot more like rock, and hip hop, and pop today.
56:04
But you do with this. That's the interesting thing to me. I could see an argument made that it's very hard to climb through the industry if you have these conservative beliefs, and are public with those beliefs, and want to write songs about those beliefs.
56:20
Because I've given you examples of radio stations unwilling to play those songs.
56:26
I mean, there's proof that there's a barrier there. There isn't proof that there's a barrier here.
56:33
And yet the impression is made from the formation of an organization like this, that there is a problem.
56:39
And I think that's why organizations like this form, because it gives off that impression. I feel very uncomfortable with the culture of country music.
56:47
So long story short, I decided to change it. I always say that. Well, you felt uncomfortable with the culture of country music, why?
56:54
In what way? Give us an, I mean, were you called all kinds of names, and was it the whole culture of country music?
57:00
Or was it, it's just too white. You look at that fan base out there, it's just too white. What is it? They don't get into these specifics.
57:07
That the Black Opry, every time we're together, it feels like a family reunion. It's something bigger, it's about all of us.
57:14
It's about creating a movement in the genre that's about inclusiveness.
57:20
And at the same time, it's about diversifying a community and a culture and saying that, you know, not only is it okay, it is normal to be a
57:28
Black country singer. Okay, hold on. It's about inclusiveness and diversity. So we're gonna start a group that you have to be
57:34
Black to be a member of, because it's about inclusiveness and diversity. So I say, this is about a launching pad to agitate other organizations in the industry.
57:49
That makes no sense. If you wanna create something that's just about good music, and it's about diversity, let everyone in.
57:57
They're not, though. This is about specifically Black country music artists. And this doesn't actually even normalize it.
58:05
What this does is it actually, it kind of ghettoizes it. It puts it off over here in this, quote unquote, safe place, the safe space.
58:18
And so where would I have to go if I wanted to listen to Black country music? Well, I guess I go to the Black Opry, right?
58:24
Well, you see what I'm talking about already? I mean, is it segregated?
58:30
So it doesn't accomplish the goal that he's stating here, which is why the only way that I can read this is, the only option that I seem to have available to me to understand this is, is has to be a way to attack the rest of the genre for being, quote unquote, racism, and to garner support to try to platform
58:48
Black artists. Which, by the way, there's been a huge push in that. I know, because,
58:54
I mean, I've heard interviews with Maren Morris and other country, she's one of the big ones, country music singers, who are talking about how much they want to promote
59:02
Black artists. And I mean, I remember her tweeting out, here's all these Black country artists you should listen to and stuff.
59:09
And the thing is, it's when instead, this is how
59:15
Charlie Pryde did it. This is how Darius Rucker did it, right? They weren't Black country music artists. That's the thing.
59:20
They were country music artists. They were just country music artists. Just like, you know,
59:25
Brad Paisley didn't say, I'm an Italian country music artist, even though he's Italian. There's not a lot, by the way, there's hardly any country music artists who are
59:32
Italian. Brad Paisley's one of them. But he doesn't come out and say, I'm Italian. We're so underrepresented.
59:40
Well, Italians don't tend to live in middle America as much. They live in the Northeast, they live in New York. There, you know, there's reasons for this, that they don't have to be racism.
59:50
But it's the same reason you don't see, who's the, oh man,
59:55
I'm blanking on the song now. There's a Filipino country music artist,
01:00:02
Neil McCoy. He doesn't come out, man, I'm a Filipino country, he's just a country music artist. And that's where, if you really want inclusion and stuff, you know, you wouldn't be wearing that on your sleeve.
01:00:13
Of course you're a Black country artist, right? But that's not the primary, like people shouldn't want to listen to you just because you're
01:00:19
Black. They should want to listen to you because it's good music. That's how art is, it's good art.
01:00:25
It appeals to your emotions. It tells a story, hopefully a story that,
01:00:32
I mean, universal emotions, universal themes, but yet a very, a story that takes place in a certain place and time.
01:00:43
It's good art. Good art is going to have an appeal, oftentimes beyond the cultures in which it was produced.
01:00:51
Who listens to Rachmaninoff out there? I mean, you have to be Russian? No, of course not.
01:00:57
I mean, it's universal. Art is beautiful like that. And we know that Rachmaninoff had to develop in a certain way, in a certain place, in order for it to have the sound it has, that music.
01:01:13
We know Bach's music or Beethoven's music, right? There are certain things in its development that had to be in those particular regions with those particular ingredients, so to speak.
01:01:23
But the art can be enjoyed by everyone. And that's really what I think, that's what would create real inclusion, real diversity.
01:01:31
Show by your skill, show by your commitment to the form. Now, if there's a real barrier, if it's really, literally, there's a whites -only sign.
01:01:41
And some of these people that have access to radio stations and stuff, they won't give you that access.
01:01:46
Well, that's one thing, but where's the evidence of that? That's the thing. And even then, you could take the
01:01:52
Booker T. Washington route and say, we're just gonna do the best we possibly can over here. And we're gonna be positive about it.
01:01:59
We're not gonna be spending our time bemoaning how bad the industry is. We're going to make the best music that we can possibly make.
01:02:07
And have fun doing it. I mean, that's what makes art good, is you get out of these ideological constraints.
01:02:14
It's organic, it's in the soil of where you grew up, of the experiences you had.
01:02:20
You write about those things. You relate to others who have had similar experiences. And there's skill involved also, as well.
01:02:28
Obviously, you have to be able to sing and play, right? We're entering a time now where certain classes of people have, in a sense, the advantage of being able to claim that they're being discriminated against.
01:02:43
I see this with the Me Too stuff constantly, with accusations of basically sexism or someone that was being inappropriate with them.
01:02:58
And it's because I'm a woman. It's because of that, that people are treating me this way. And could it be, in some situations, that there's obviously the side of heaven, there's not gonna, sin's not gonna go away.
01:03:10
Of course, there's gonna be situations where men will mistreat women and stuff. But sometimes on the single, most inconsequential piece of evidence that's not really even evidence, the reading into something that's not really evidence at all, these claims will be made.
01:03:29
And it's kind of like whether I have the skill or whether I have the ability and talent doesn't seem to matter.
01:03:37
It's the fact that I'm a woman that really should make you promote me or believe me.
01:03:45
Whether I've demonstrated honesty or not, you should believe me because I'm a woman. It's the same thing with all these different classes of people that Marxists really want to use as a way to kind of build wedges between people groups.
01:04:01
It's the same play that's used over and over and over. And I see that play here, possibly.
01:04:09
If you have the talent, if you have the skill, then just play wherever you can possibly play.
01:04:17
If you fit in with what audiences want, then you just keep working hard at it.
01:04:22
Prove yourself. Have fun. In the providence of God, see where it leads.
01:04:29
But that's not what this is. This is, we're black, so we haven't been given these opportunities, even though we can identify black artists who have been, let's blame the whole industry for our lack of success.
01:04:44
Let's kind of create, let's segregate off and then complain about the rest of the industry and how it needs to change and put us in charge.
01:04:52
Now, I'm not gonna play some of the music here. You can judge for yourself whether some of the artists, you can go to their website and see if these artists actually have the talent and skill, in your opinion, and maybe you'll like the music,
01:05:03
I don't know. But that's the point, though, is that this isn't legitimate art, trying to promote legitimate art.
01:05:15
It's not even about the promotion of the art, and here's what we have to offer. It's just activism. It's just political activism.
01:05:22
And I'd be curious, I don't know, but I would be very curious to see where the Black Opry, where their funding source is.
01:05:29
Maybe we'll go to the website afterward and just take a look. I feel like the
01:05:37
Black Opry, what it means to Nashville, it just kind of shows that we're more than welcome to sit at the table with this, but we don't really completely need you to provide everything for us anymore, and we're, be a part of it, or be upset that you missed a chance to be a part of it.
01:05:52
Don't let how you look affect what you do, because if your country, if this is a genre that you wanna be in, then you just unapologetically do it.
01:06:06
Okay, let's just go to the website real quick. Black Opry, okay, blackopry .com.
01:06:20
I doubt it'll have funding sources and stuff. There's a
01:06:25
Wikipedia page for it, too. So it talks about who,
01:06:35
Holly G. is the person who started it, and Holly G.
01:06:41
cited as inspiration and incident in February, 2021, when a recording of country singer Morgan Wallen using the racial slur, the
01:06:48
N -word, was publicized, leading to criticism and increased discussion of racial roles within country music. I talked about that months ago.
01:06:56
I'm not gonna rehash all that. I talked about that, and just how disproportionate the backlash, and just, it was, immediately apologizes for it.
01:07:12
It happens when he's drunk, I guess, a neighbor, and he's, anyway,
01:07:17
I don't wanna rehash the whole thing, but he said it was wrong. He apologizes, but there was no end to the he must be canceled, and all these, and these record labels.
01:07:28
It looked like his record label was gonna drop him. It was, he was taken off the air. He was taken off tour, and then the fans said, hold on.
01:07:38
Like, there was a backlash against the cancel culture of like, you're gonna take Morgan Wallen, and then they were doing like videos with Morgan Wallen and black artists and trying to kind of like, you know, show that he's not a racist, but it was interesting because the fans rejected it.
01:07:55
What the corporate entities, what the people at the top, the woke corporations were doing to try to cancel this guy, the fans weren't accepting.
01:08:04
They, billboards popped up saying, we support this guy, and it's not because we support racial slurs.
01:08:10
Obviously, it's we support a guy who makes good music, in their opinion, who apologized for it, and we don't think you should just reduce the whole guy's life to this one moment when he was drunk and said something that wasn't even meant in a racial way, racially insensitive way.
01:08:25
I mean, the whole thing, but that's what inspired the, her to start this, which is interesting to me.
01:08:35
So, George Floyd, I guess, she said in the video in that incident. So, I doesn't say where the funding is, and the website doesn't seem to be loading right now for me.
01:08:45
I'm not sure why, but that is the podcast for today.
01:08:51
I just wanna do, I appreciate everyone indulging me and allowing me to talk about something that I kinda wanted to talk about that I know is a little off the beaten path.
01:09:00
I don't normally talk about this stuff. And so, there you go. More definitely coming within the next week, possibly the next few days.
01:09:10
Like I said, I might be reviewing some Carl Truman stuff. In fact, I have a book, Carl Truman book,
01:09:16
I think. Oh, here it is. This might be something I'm gonna be going over to,
01:09:23
Republocrat by Carl Truman, Republocrat. I've seen some quotes from this, and it looks like it's, like I would have thought
01:09:30
Tim Keller wrote it, not Carl Truman, but it's Carl Truman. And so, there's gonna be a couple things that we're gonna be looking at.