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Vince Gill weighed in on the state of country music and how Morgan Wallen’s recent use of a racial slur has fueled a negative perception of the genre.
Wallen, 27, apologized earlier this month after being caught on camera saying the N-word. In an interview with CBS this morning, Gill said “it was just sad.”
“It was just disappointing because I knew everyone was going to slaughter country music,” the 63-year-old said on Wednesday. “White America, when they make the argument” Well I hear it in rap music all the time “… haven’t you paid attention to how that word has been used by the white community? in the last 300 or 400 years? It’s derogatory, dismissive and hurtful. It has no place. “
Fallout for Wallen, on the industry side, was quick. The rising star will no longer be eligible for the ACM Awards. He was abandoned by his agency, William Morris Endeavor. Big Loud Records suspended Wallen’s recording contract indefinitely. But his fans don’t seem to care. Wallen, who previously competed on The voice, has album n ° 1 for the fifth consecutive week.
Gill, a 21-time Grammy winner, understands there is a problem with the genre. That’s why his new single “March On, March On” addresses racial calculus. The songwriter understands that people believe country music “is extremely conservative,” but warned, “I’m not sure that’s true.”
“Maybe the audience is overwhelmingly conservative, but I don’t know if the artistry is. I don’t know if the community is, so there’s a catch there,” he said. he shares. Gill pointed out the positive reaction TJ Osborne received when he recently became gay, which the country’s legend called “spectacular.”
But racism in country music has always affected the genre, and some artists have recognized how they perpetuated historic racism. Country star Luke Combs apologized on Wednesday for his previous use of Confederate flag images.
“There is no excuse for these images,” Combs said at a Country Radio Seminar event. “I think, as a young man, it was an image that I associated with to mean something else. And as I grew as an artist and the world has changed dramatically over the years. the past five to seven years [when the images were created]I now know how painful this picture can be for someone else. … I would never want to be associated with something that hurts someone else so much. “
The Grammy nominee added, “I apologize for being associated with this. Hate is not part of my core values, and it is not something that I consider part of myself. “
Combs said he hopes to serve as an example of how people can change.
“I’m here to learn,” he explained. “I felt like I was at this very successful point in my career, and I couldn’t sit down and do nothing. I couldn’t help but say, ‘Hey, I want people to know that we, as a genre, care about that. ‘”
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