Darius Rucker sat down with CNN's Chris Wallace on “Who's Talking to Chris Wallace” and shared his candid thoughts on whether or not a racist stigma still exists in country music.
Rucker, known for his hits “Wagon Wheel” and “Beers and Sunshine,” acknowledged that stigma persists.
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“It's still there. You see it in some places and I don't think it's ever going to go away,” he said.
The conversation also touched on Beyoncé's latest and first country album, “Cowboy Carter.” Earlier this year, Beyoncé became the first black woman to reach number 1 on Billboard's country albums chart.
“I can't express enough how important what he did was,” Rucker said. “It brought a lot of eyes to the genre. When I started doing country music and having hits, I had African-American women and men come up to me and say, 'I love country music.' I could never say that until now because you're playing, and I can tell'”.
Rucker praised Beyoncé for bringing even more attention to country music and encouraging more black people to embrace the genre. “I always say I want country music to be more like America, and I think he did a lot to move it in that direction,” he added.
And while Beyoncé's album's performance in terms of stats is hard to question, as well as the attention it brought to the genre from fans outside of country, most traditional country fans would consider that the music is not country.
In fact, regardless of the style of music on the album, logic dictates that the album will sell because it's Beyoncé and she has a huge fan base. For example, I could release a death metal album and it would sell like crazy.
Still, while Rucker's comments about racism in country music are absurd, he's at least right in one sense: Beyoncé brought new attention to the genre.
In response to Rucker's comments, social media users were quick to chime in with their thoughts.
“There is no more country music. Not for decades,” said one user lamenting what most believe these days. Country music has become more pop-centric over the past decade, and traditional fans have gotten over it. A Beyoncé album simply took things over the top.
“Then stop doing it,” another told Rucker.
Others then drew comparisons to hip hop music, noting that all genres have their problems.
“Is hip-hop music morally superior?”
“Now do hip hop,” said another.
In short, several things can be true at the same time.
Country music has changed over the years both culturally and in terms of the genre's music styles.
Every genre of music, or sect of life, for that matter, has a stigma attached to it, be it fair or unfair.
And Darius biting the hand that feeds him was a stupid move, especially when country music isn't racist.
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