Beyoncé collaborators Willie Jones, Shaboozey and the conflict of being Black in country music. ttmd

Charley Pride, here in 1998, was a Country Music Hall of Fame singer who rose from rural Mississippi to become the genre's first Black superstar. He died in 2020 at age 86 in Dallas because of complications from COVID-19, according to a news release from his publicist, Jeremy Westby.

Charley Pride, here in 1998, was a Country Music Hall of Fame singer who rose from rural Mississippi to become the genre’s first Black superstar. He died in 2020 at age 86 in Dallas because of complications from COVID-19, according to a news release from his publicist, Jeremy Westby.
Because Pride is, far and away, the most successful Black artist in country music (more successful, even, than many white artists), his career journey has become the path which subsequent Black acts must follow. This is the case whether they were led to it by the industry’s white gatekeepers or decided to embark on it on their own.

As such, Black artists in country music — certainly the ones who have developed any sizable platform — tend to be aberrations within their appointed entourages, exceptions to their own rules. Or, as Jones put it, “a fly in a milk bowl.” Often, they tour with white bands and write with white songwriters; they record with white producers and establish their careers with the help of white managers and publicists.

Black artists on Beyoncé’s album are streamed because of her, not them

To some people, some Black artists included, none of this matters. I’m just trying to make music, they say. I have to do what’s best for me, they say. And, in an echo of the white decision-makers (who, absent the death of George Floyd and/or the release Beyonce’s “Cowboy Carter” album, would’ve never uttered their names): I don’t even know any Black (fill-in-the-blank).

Willie Jones attends the 2024 CMT Music Awards at Moody Center on April 7, 2024, in Austin, Texas.

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