"Everything but country and rap..."
these grammy's may have been hard for y'all.
I don’t know about you, but all the way through High School and College people would tell me they liked “everything but country and rap.” Oh, so you hate the South? You hate music made by Black People? You hate music made by poor people? I don’t know exactly when it stopped or why, but I wonder if you still hear it? Regardless, it has stuck in my head, swirling around, as someone who has always loved both country and rap, pop and punk, who was never fully from the South but has always already loved it. And, sure I am painting with a broad brush (there are artists in all genres I am not about) but so does that comment.
Beyonce finally won Album of the Year and for a country album. It was deserved (and it has been deserved before). The look of shock on her face when she won Country Album of the Year says everything about the way country music (the establishment, Nashville) and country music fans have treated her music. Beyonce should have won for Lemonade and Renaissance. That doesn’t mean she won for Cowboy Carter because she didn’t win AOTY then. It means she should have won three times and she’s only one once. For it to be for a country album is a momentous fuck you to CMT and the Country music establishment. When she won (and finally went up on stage thanks to her manager, Blue) she said, still in shock
“Oh, my God. I'd like to thank all of the incredible country artists that accepted this, this album. We worked so hard on it. I think sometimes genre is a code word to keep us in our place as artists, and I just want to encourage people to do what they're passionate about and to stay persistent.”
What went unsaid is that genre is a racialized and classed code word used to keep artists in their place. Black people can do country but they can’t call it country, unless they get white people involved.
It’s why she needed the Dixie Chicks on Daddy Lessons, why Lil Nas X had to resurrect the career of Billy Ray Cyrus for country to give him any radio play, and why Darius Rucker has had to embrace the bro.1 Country Music is racist (as is our country, don’t play). Even the repetition of “the 13,000 voting members of the academy” by announcers seemed a way for the Grammys to distance themselves from the awards (Beyonce and Kendrick’s wins in particular).
Rap and Hip Hop also had a big night, an important one. Doechii won Best Rap Album, the THIRD woman to win the award, and as a Southerner. I love that she repped Tampa so hard, repped Florida, and repped the South.2 To have two Black Southern women win, while claiming their roots in the South explicitly, is extraordinary. Andre 3000 didn’t win a Grammy this year but it was both a long time ago and not long ago at all that he said, at the 95 source awards,
“I'm tired of folks, you know what I'm saying, close-minded folks, you know what I'm saying. We got a demo tape and don't nobody want to hear it, but it's like the South got something to say. That's all I'm gonna say.”
And Andre 3000 kept saying it, over and over again, first with Outkast, and later with his flute. He also helped make space for so many other Southern Black artists, because lest we forget, Black Southerners weren’t welcome in Hip Hop either for a very long time.
Kendrick obviously deserved his wins and I love that he repped his west coast rap heritage (though Dr. Dre is not it). Does this mean the west coast is on top? Or the South? I think regionalism is fundamental to this music but should it be?
Do not open your mouth to tell me Florida isn’t the South. All that says is that you are racist.