OUR NATIVE DAUGHTERS
WHEN SOLANGE KNOWLES RELEASED HER FOURTH STUDIO ALBUM, When I Get
Home, in March, she did it to highlight Black cowboy culture. “I knew it would be really important to me to tell a story about Black cowboys,” she said at a release party in Houston, TX. “I feel so privileged to meet so many of these cowboys, hear their stories and see what they’re willing to do to their bodies for the sake of entertainment — which is something I can relate to.”
Her release coincided with the rise of 19-year-old Lil Nas X, whose 2018 single “Old Town Road” had started going viral via TikTok videos. Adorned with cowboy hats, Hèrmes belts and extravagant jewellery, the young Black artist left audiences confused. Was he a country artist? Was he a rapper? Quickly, the intersection between country music and Black culture was up for discussion.
While the single, which Lil Nas X marked as “country” in streaming service metadata, found itself charting on Bill
board’s Hot Country Songs chart in March, the organization decided to remove it, citing, “It does not embrace enough elements of today’s country music to chart in its current version.”
Lil Nas X was quick to point out that Florida Georgia Line and Bebe Rexha’s “Meant to Be” was allowed on the country charts, despite also featuring “trap drums.” Similarly, country artists such as Sam Hunt and Thomas Rhett have geared their music to being more bass-heavy, while
Blanco Brown’s breakthrough single, “The Git Up,” was tracked on Billboard because it was promoted on country radio, and Brown had a previous history of recording “traditional” country music.
Unlike his Black peers, such as Blanco Brown and biracial artist Kane Brown,
Lil Nas X was met with hesitation at every corner — even more so after coming out as a gay man. Despite “Old Town Road” becoming the longest-running song to hold the #1 position on the
Billboard Hot 100, dethroning Mariah Carey and Boyz II Men’s 1997 single “One Sweet Day” and Luis Fonsi, Daddy Yankee and Justin Bieber’s “Despacito (Remix),” the Country Music Awards failed to recognize the single in any musical categories, but rather for “Musical Event of the Year.”
It’s the same category that biracial folk/Americana singer Rhian
non Giddens — who recently put together the all-Black socially and politically driven group Our Native
Daughters — was also nominated for in 2017 after releasing Freedom
Highway, an album about slavery and the Civil Rights era.
While Black country artists are no longer an anomaly, underlying racial tones, reluctance to change and stubbornness about reflecting on the history and origins of the genre consume their stories. On the heels of change, will the country music industry step up?