#99. Country Music

"Some say it's a backward place
narrow minds on the narrow way
but I make it a point to say
that's where I come from."

These lyrics to Kenny Chesney's song "Back Where I Come from" epitomize how the entire world views heterosexual, white males who display any semblance of pride in who they are and where they come from.

To Black people, this song - if they've ever heard it at all - might as well be played in the opening scenes of Leni Riefenstahl's "Triumph of the Will", for Black people view country music and the people who listen to this nefarious genre of music as the direct descendants of the Nazi's.

It was said by a prominent Civil Rights activist that the path to equality would have to run against the south, and yet, "there the south stood, with a fiery sword."

That sword was sheathed thanks to college football, but within the lyrics of country music songs, the performers who write these hits and the millions of fans around the world who congregate in a sea of whiteness at country music concerts, Black people are beginning to wonder if that sword might be unsheathed at some point.

Kanye West, self-proclaimed King of the World, recently decided to interrupt country singer Taylor Swift at a moment of triumph for the young star. Country music fans around the world saw this as a direct assault on "one of their own" and were shocked that nary a soul (save Beyonce) came to her rescue.

There exist no people on the planet as loyal to a country as country music fans. They drape themselves in the red, white and blue and love Pre-Obama America with a ferocity that would make Abraham Lincoln chuckle.

And it is for this reason that Black people look with suspicious eyes at country music fans and shield themselves from listening to this form of music, even though an estimated two percent of the country music audience is Black.

Of course, another reason Black people might not like country music is expressed beautifully in this quote:

"Or does the problem lie with people like MCA Nashville president Tony Brown, one of the most respected judges of talent on Music Row? "Country basically is white music. Why would black people want to sing those straight notes...?" he asked in a November 1996 New York Times interview. "To me, black music is about feeling and white music is about no feeling."

No, the reason Black people find country music so violent to the ears is because of the message they wrongly perceive to be behind it and who listens to the music: Middle America, i.e., the media code-word for white people.

What qualifies as country music?:

"Country music (or country and Western) is a blend of popular musical forms originally found in the Southern United States and the Appalachian Mountains. It has roots in traditional folk music, Celtic music, gospel music and old-time music and evolved rapidly in the 1920s.

The term country music began to be used in the 1940s when the earlier term hillbilly music was deemed to be degrading and the term was widely embraced in the 1970s, while country and Western has declined in use since that time, except in the United Kingdom and Ireland, where it is still commonly used.

In the Southwestern United States a different mix of ethnic groups created the music that became the Western music of the term country and Western. The term "country music" is used today to describe many styles and subgenres."

Automatically, anytime a Black person hears country music on the radio, save for that purported two percent (a statistical anomaly or perhaps masochists), the iconography and theme song from Deliverance are the first thoughts that enter a Black persons mind, followed immediately by the Nazi, er, Confederate Flag.

Country music is synonymous with white people in the eyes of Black people and the only form of music that Black people have yet to try enter, at least with great success.

One such intrepid Black person who has thrown his cowboy hat into the white-world of country music is Cowboy Troy, who has tried to fuse rap with country, but his act has not caught on as well as hoped. More so, he is a dreaded Black Conservative, which puts him squarely at odds with Black people as he is a Republican, automatically a Token Black and is trying to Act White.

Worse, he has yet to be embraced by country music fans and is an outcast in his own community.

Interestingly, he is a fan of the World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE), and it was in an organization that WWE bought, World Championship Wrestling (WCW), the disconnect between rap and country music was prominently on display:

"The West Texas Rednecks formed in June 1999 in WCW. The group developed from four wrestlers who fit the mold of a southern gimmick and had teamed with one another in the recent months. They were to be a heel group to feud with the No Limit Soldiers led by Master P. But the WCW fans, the majority of whom were in the south, did not boo the Rednecks and disliked the rappers instead. The feud was quickly dropped and the Rednecks were given other face groups to quarrel with instead. They lasted until late October 1999.

The group was made up of leader Curt Hennig, brothers Barry and Kendall Windham, and Bobby Duncum, Jr.. Although Hennig was actually from Minnesota, they billed him as being from Texas like the others. They filmed several vignettes with them riding four-wheelers and they recorded a country song called "Rap is Crap," that received some airplay in the south and on WCW television. The song is mainly about the bands apparent dislike for the genre of rap music. It also discusses some of the bands favorite things associated with the southern culture and country music. "Rap is Crap" can be found on WCW Mayhem: The Music. Their second theme song "Good Ol' Boys" was based on Jeff Jarrett's theme song from the mid 1990s. The Windham brothers won the WCW World Tag Team Championship during this time together. They were joined by Curly Bill, who wore a particularly humorous cowboy outfit, near the end of the group's existence.

The group was originally called The West Texas Outlaws, with West Texas Rednecks intended as an insult. The combination of the popularity of the name West Texas Rednecks, however, combined with the commentators almost never using the stable's proper name, resulted in the Rednecks becoming the group's official name."

Professional wrestling as a petri dish of understanding popular culture and how different racial groups respond to different tendencies in music. Who knew?

Country music has long been seen as an incubator of hate music, as Black people think anytime a guitar, beer and white people get together, a lynch mob can't be far away:

"As an example of how new this was, I noted how country singer Toby Keith’s 2003 hit with country icon Willie Nelson, “Beer for My Horses” that contained the lyrics

"Grandpappy told my pappy back in my day, son
A man had to answer for the wicked that he’d done
Take all the rope in Texas
Find a tall oak tree, round up all of them bad boys
Hang them high in the street
For all the people to see elicited no controversy at the time."

Well, now Keith is set to star in a movie based on the song, and now the always insufferable Max Blumenthal has procalimed the song to by a “pro-lynching anthem.” He is particularly incensed that Keith is performing the song on the Colbert Report, The Jay Leno Show, and other venues and no doubt his buddies at Media Matters and the Southern Poverty Law Center will follow up.

Blumenthal writes in the Huffington Post “During the days when Toby Keith’s “Grandpappy” stalked the Jim Crow South, lynching was an institutional method of terror employed against blacks to maintain white supremacy.

Blumenthal fails to note that the song is a duet with country icon Willie Nelson who actually sings the offending lines. Nelson has impeccable left wing credentials and played at the 2004 Democratic convention and is expected to play in 2008. I am still waiting for Blumenthal to object.

Furthermore, like the videos for other country music songs that decry street crime like Montgomery Gentry’s “You Do Your Thing, I’ll Do Mine” and Hank Williams Jr.’s “A Country Boy Can Survive” the video for Beer For My Horses portrays urban criminals is white.

Nonetheless, Blumethal insists the song and video are all about encouraging lynching African Americans,

Cue ahead to 3:00 and watch as Keith intones, “We got too many gangsters doin’ dirty deeds.” The singer’s words are not-so-subtly accompanied by the image of a swaggering black man sporting short dreads and baggy clothes. Thus the profile of Keith’s ideal lynching candidate is revealed."

Country music has an audience that is nearly 100 percent white. It is a form of music that resonates with white people in the south, and yet, can be heard in California, Minnesota, New York and any state where white people live.

Songs like Toby Keith's "American Ride" speak to the growing anger in MARs, who are slowly awakening from a long cultural nap:

"Winter gettin colder, summer gettin warmer.
Tidal wave comin cross the Mexican border.
Why buy a gallon, its cheaper by the barrel.
Just dont be busted singin Christmas carols."

Black people don't like George W. Bush and in that horrible storm that he caused called Katrina, Black people decided to try and salvage as much of New Orleans as they could and went to local stores to safe-guard valuables. However, they seemed to leave some goods to the ravages of the flood:

"The Wal-Mart store in uptown New Orleans, built within the last year, survived the storm but was destroyed by looters.

"They took everything, all the electronics, the food, the bikes," said John Stonaker, a Wal-Mart security officer. "People left their old clothes on the floor when they took new ones. The only thing left are the country-and-western CDs. You can still get a Shania Twain album."

Country music is a demonic form of music in the eyes of Black people, and a mechanism for cultural homogeneity that could unite MARs and return the fiery sword to not just southerner's, but all white people's hands. In South Africa, a song called "De La Ray" is uniting Afrikaners against an alien government there that seeks to dehumanize the white populace.

You can't have a revolution without a good dance, and Black people had their own with gangsta rap, but that revolution has gone soft. With Mein Obama in the White House, Black people rightly believe the "colored" revolution has won.

Yet, Black people know that sword still exists and they grow weary as country music continues to speak to "the soul's of white folks".

In the end, Stuff Black People Don't Like will always include Country Music, a genre of music that Black people will attempt to outlaw as the future reaches us and the reality of Cook County becomes the reality of all America. For Country Music is the one form of music that will unite MARs in the end, and that unwritten song waits in the wings, to Black people's chagrin.