As musicians, artists, and audience members we hold a lot of power in the art we make and consume. It can sometimes seem like we don’t have much because there are large intimidating players in the game. The biggest being record labels, conglomerate radio channels, and massive retail outlet chains. However we’ve learned this year that collectively we can wield power that can shape our world—from simply raising our voice, getting out in the street, and investigating inequality and injustice when it shows up in our communities or online. It’s to that end I want to encourage you. And to do so, I’d like to tell a story of our not-to-distant past.

This time last year, whether you were shopping in a mask-free grocery store, or grabbing a drink in a packed bar, (remember 2019? Wild times…) inescapable was the dominant hit “Old Town Road” by Lil Nas X. Its launch from almost total obscurity to cultural phenom was so fast and sweeping the industry was not prepared for it. The industry was not prepared for a young queer black artist to appear so quick, possess such unquestionable dominance in multiple scenes, all completely without the help of traditional industry infrastructure such as labels, distributors, or managers.

Proof of this is that shortly after its debut on Billboard’s Hot Country Songs, the publication silently decided to remove it telling Rolling Stone "upon further review, it was determined that 'Old Town Road' by Lil Nas X does not currently merit inclusion on Billboard's country charts. When determining genres, a few factors are examined, but first and foremost is musical composition. While 'Old Town Road' incorporates references to country and cowboy imagery, it does not embrace enough elements of today's country music to chart in its current version."

Weird right? You might not get what’s so strange about this so I’ll try and lend some context. This is Lil Nas X.

Handsome dude. Now, for comparison, here are the country artists that collectively had the top 30 songs as listed on Billboard’s Year-end Top Country Songs of 2019, the year “Old Town Road” was released.

“One of these things is not like the other…”

A stark enough contrast. But for just a little more compare, here’s Billboard’s Year-end Hot 100 for the same year.

I don’t want there to be any ambiguity so I’ll spell this out: country music isn’t very diverse. There could certainly be a lot of reasons as to why this is, but I’m interested in taking a historical perspective about genre in music, its origins, how it continues to be used against artists (particularly artists of color), and what we as artists, musicians, and audiences can do about it to affect change.

The very first genre of music ever created was “race music”. It was composed exclusively of Black artists and their musical works regardless of what style they performed. They were segregated deliberately so that white audiences would know exactly what they would be purchasing. Most modern, predominantly white styles of popular music—specifically Rock and Country—have direct roots in race music. The entire delineation of genre in the music industry is not one of marketing purposes, but one rooted in racism. The very first people to exploit this were record labels.

As you can imagine, making race records was cheaper than producing white artists because they paid them less. A lot less. It’s not unfair to say that record labels took egregious advantage of Black artists and used the popularity of race music to eventually even leverage record deals with white artists. The concept of a record company owning publishing rights to music persists to this day because of ways they first started taking advantage of black artists and has been something expected in the industry ever since.

What does this sordid history of music in America mean for artists and their fans today? First, we experience a lot of strange, racially and culturally segregated lines in music. For anyone who has been listening, the line between hip-hop, country, and pop has been blurring for decades. There exists no greater example of this than “Old Town Road” with it’s hip hop sub-bass, pop melodies, and country drawl. It seems that whatever genre you’re not a fan of is the one that sticks out to you when listening to it.

These lines we draw are meant to silence certain artists and allow some to codify racist statements. If you hear someone say “I hate hip-hop” and then bump Kenny Chesney’s “American Kids”, that’s rap, y’all. Statements like these just let people hide behind their codified language rather than express what they really intend. A much more honest sentiment might be “your culture frightens me”.

This is what I want to focus on: the erasure of the history of BIPOC (black, indigenous, people of color) contribution to music, and the continued racial segregation of "genres" that silences them and how we can change this going forward. So what are we, as lovers of this art form of “music” called to do?

The responsibility we as artists have is to help promote fellow peers in our industry, particularly those without as prominent a platform as our own power and privilege may afford us. Especially those whom have had an influence on our careers and art. In case it needs to be said: it’s not that there aren’t any Black Country artists. Pay special attention to artists that have had a profound historical effect on the style. Give visibility to those artists and those communities using your own platform. State how they’ve affected you, influence you, and encourage your fans to invest their time and energy in them. Take the time to see them as a part of your story and retell it from that perspective. For the record, it took no less than the Great Billy Ray Cyrus Himself, to eventually get Billboard to take Lil Nas X seriously despite his clear dominance. Thank you, Great One, for such a clear example of this first point.

Those of us in the industry have the responsibility of being as ethical as possible. When we pit our artists and creatives against each other it drives a wedge through creativity. Whether the division it causes is racial, cultural, etc., it does a disservice to the love and care artists create art with. Give artists deals that are fair to them and their craft. Declare your appreciation loudly about the artists whose works express non-traditional views, or experiences different from your own. Find new ways to work with disenfranchised and silenced communities. Partner with them in building their own infrastructure to create and distribute their works. Growing the industry will always pay dividends to everyone in the industry.

As fans and lovers of music, discover new music by voices off of your beaten path. Music streaming algorithms tend to suggest more of the same music you already listen to and tend to create a lane for you. Deviate by following Black, brown, and Indigenous creators. Recognize that music is almost more cultural than it is physiological. This means that the more you know about a culture, its triumphs, and struggles the easier it is to engage. Share those works you come across that move you! Engage with those artists and their fans.

A lesson we can learn from the controversial app TikTok (which has been known to remove and ghost ban BIPOC’s posts) is that there are benefits if we seek out those people with voices different from our own: When those communities are in trouble everyone is already in position to hear those experiences from the art and content created by those groups. We can all then be ready with help to support and bolster their voices with our own. It has shown an entire generation of people that listening to people with different experiences can be both enlightening and empowering. This beginning is one we can begin building real change from so that maybe artists like Lil Nas X can find a home in the place that they feel closest to, rather than excluded from the conversation all together.

Have more great ideas on how to celebrate our differences in the medium of music? I’d love to hear them in the comments.

The Racism of Music Genres