Thread by @JessicaHuseman

it's frankly stunning (not suprising) how much of very popular country music is inherently racist.

It's also disappointing: There are some fkn GREAT country artists, new and old, that are extremely ahead of their time, whose work doesn't get nearly as much play.

https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1372557069312753676

This is a lyric from a Toby Keith song from *2003* - not old - who is from Oklahoma, not Texas. But neither here nor there, please instead listen to Tyler Childers, Dolly Parton, the Highwomen or Brandi Carlisle.

And also: Black country artists. Charlie Pride, most notably. Darius Rucker, notably of Hootie and the Blowfish before going solo country. My personal favorite, Yola - who is also British but has, frankly, the best voice in Americana/Country currently on the radio.

One day I'll write a book about these socially conscious country artists writing about Real Shit rather than trucks and guns and oak trees and rope. There is so much out there, and this really poetic genre gets completely washed by these dumb fks selling albums to ignorant people

I love country music (red dirt, listen to it) and Americana music because it is beautifully written, thoughtful and real. That Toby Keith is most American's understanding of this diverse and fantastic musical genre while Yola and Tyler Childers are called "Americana" is absurd.

Anyway, please enjoy this love song written to a woman from a woman that is one of the greatest songs of the last decade that i have not once heard played on the radio:

Or this Tyler Childer's masterpiece on the fucked up couple of years we've had, with such lyrics as:

Or this Loretta Lynn song from *1975* on the wonders of BIRTH CONTROL.

"This incubator is overused
Because you've kept it filled
The feelin' good comes easy now
Since I've got the pill"

Book publishers, get at me. I've got loads of this shit.

Oh and how can I forget @JasonIsbell?

Or a Woodie Guthrie song in 1945 that sought to give names to "deportees."

"Some of us are illegal. And others not wanted. Our work contract’s up, and we have to move on / six hundred miles to that Mexican border, they chase us like outlaws, like rustlers, like thieves.”

Or Steve Earl in 2015 about how it was time for Mississippi to retire the confederate flag.

"Look away, Mississippi
Mississippi, you're on my mind
All the crosses burned and the lessons unlearned
Left a scar across my heart and it's ten miles wide"
rollingstone.com/music/music-co…

Or Drive By Truckers' "What it Means" about the death of black men at the hands of police.

“I mean Barack Obama won. And you can choose where to eat. But you don’t see too many white kids lying, bleeding on the street.”

Country music has a long, storied history of writing current events directly into songs. That those that went the racist route instead of a route towards inclusion and love are more popular than those that aren't isn't about the genre, it's about the people who listen to it.

Anyway thanks for coming to this Ted Talk. Something I say often in jest, but on this topic I would actually be willing to do one.