Tear down this last confederate statue: Country Music
Country Music is a low key vestige from the south’s delusion of victory in America’s Civil War.
Tear down this confederate statue. Beyonce tried to tear it down with the song Daddy Lessons and subsequent performance at the Country Music Awards. K Michelle tried with her country music. However Lil Nas X’s Country Trap song: Old Time Road
Country Music is a low key vestige from the south’s delusion of victory in America’s Civil War.
Tear down this confederate statue. Beyonce tried to tear it down with the song Daddy Lessons and subsequent performance at the Country Music Awards.
K Michelle tried with her country music. However Lil Nas X’s Country Trap song: Old Time Road’s removal and exclusion from the Billboard Country charts where it reached Number 19 makes it clear that Country Music is a cancer. It’s a racist genre, and needs to call itself NOT country but White People only music. Maybe it should be called Caucasian Music, White Music, I don’t know. But Country Trap music is country music.
Yes. It’s harsh to call Country Music a confederate statue, but check this out. If you don’t believe that country music is not the last vestige from the south’s delusion in the war to free the slaves, aka the Civil war, look no further than the platinum selling country group: Confederate Railroad
You can read more about them more on wikipedia here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confederate_Railroad or visit their website here: confederaterailroad.net
This certified platinum band was founded in 1987 and was initially signed to Atlantic Records. This band consists of all white men. They have their band name give homage to the states that sought to preserve their way of life of enslaving my ancestors. Both sides of my family descend from slaves. I do not take joy, nor give a pass, or even understand those who take joy in the physical oppression of my people who are still experience economic and psychological oppression.
The data speaks for itself. It will take more 400 years for Black people to obtain the same level of wealth that white America currently has. When black people are successful and do something innovative they are systematically targeted, and their genius diminished. This hateful behavior is unacceptable in a society that purports itself to be a meritocracy with liberty and justice for all. There is nothing wrong with a band being all white men. I loved Queen, The Eagles and The Police. Love that music. However the context of Lil Nas X’s removal from the Country Billboard charts, Beyonce’s exclusion and the marginalization of black artists deserves examination. It appears that no matter how high of quality, creative, or talented a black artist is they are systematically excluded from the country music charts and community. Just the name “Confederate Railroad” is the epitome of the white supremacist, patriarchal society and system of racism.
Country music is defined by google as “a form of popular music originating in the rural southern US. It is traditionally a mixture of ballads and dance tunes played characteristically on fiddle, guitar, steel guitar, drums, and keyboard.”
According to Wikipedia, Country Music is:
Country music often consists of ballads and dance tunes with generally simple forms, folk lyrics, and harmonies mostly accompanied by string instruments such as banjos, electric and acoustic guitars, steel guitars (such as pedal steels and dobros), and fiddles as well as harmonicas.[2][3][4]Blues modes have been used extensively throughout its recorded history.[5]
According to Lindsey Starnes, the term country music gained popularity in the 1940s in preference to the earlier term hillbilly music; it came to encompass Western music, which evolved parallel to hillbilly music from similar roots, in the mid-20th century. In 2009 in the United States, country music was the most listened to rush hour radio genre during the evening commute, and second most popular in the morning commute.[6]
The term country music is used today to describe many styles and subgenres. The origins of country music are found in the folk music of working class Americans, who blended popular songs, Irish and Celtic fiddle tunes, traditional English ballads, cowboy songs, and the musical traditions of various groups of European immigrants
Let’s be honest. Lil Nas X’s song has the following country music elements:
1. Banjo (sounds like a guitar or steel guitar)
2. Drums
3. Danceabilty
4. Country Twang
5. Lyrics that tell a story
In interviews Lil Nas X discloses that he wrote this song from a very frustrated place. He had just dropped out of college, and he was tired of living with his sister, and she was tired of living with him. He was having a valley experience, and wrote this song to encourage himself. When you think of country music songs such as Dolly Parton’s 9 to 5, I Will Always Love You, Red Shoes and more. Country music tells a story. It has a certain sound. However if you look at artists which are Country Billboard chart and Country Music Award regulars like Taylor Swift. You could do a sonic analysis and hear the hip hop elements, Electronic music elements, and pop elements. However Taylor’s Country fusion sound is welcome in country music circles.
The fact that the powers that be at Billboard are suddenly caring about the alleged integrity of the country music art form is laughable at best, and hypocritical and racist at worse.
According to Critical Race theory, the definition of racism is multifaceted. It consists of prejudice and stereotypes. However the most damaging part of racism is the oppression that results from the power that white people use to deny access to black people to mortgages, schools, water, food, and in the case of the banger OLD TIME ROAD: Billboard Charts.
According to DismantlingRacism.org oppression is defined as “the systematic subjugation of one social group by a more powerful social group for the social, economic, and political benefit of the more powerful social group. Rita Hardiman and Bailey Jackson state that oppression exists when the following 4 conditions are found:
+ the oppressor group has the power to define reality for themselves and others,
+ the target groups take in and internalize the negative messages about them and end up cooperating with the oppressors (thinking and acting like them),
+ genocide, harassment, and discrimination are systematic and institutionalized, so that individuals are not necessary to keep it going, and,
+ members of both the oppressor and target groups are socialized to play their roles as normal and correct.
Oppression = Power + Prejudice”
Every country song that I have ever heard has told a story.
Old Town Road has banjo, utilizes the musical language of working class Americans, and has lyrics that tells a story.
For a genre that celebrates a multiple platinum group like Confederate Railroad that dares to sing about Jesus, trashy women, and more the hypocrisy, racism and hate is more than I can stand. It should be called out for what it is.
Lil Nas X’s banger OLD Town Road being removed from the Billboard country Music Charts lets me know this truth that:
Country Music is NOT country music. It’s white people ONLY music.
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