Black Voices In Country Music
Claudia Jones, Photo By Photo: Getty
Contemporary criticism for the absence of Black voices in American culture is attributed to the ‘lack of exposure’ marginalised people are subject to. Transnational pan-Africanist Claudia Jones, introduces a discussion on ‘the repression of American Negro Culture as a result of white supremacy and oppression through work-songs, literature, art and dance’. Through the dissection of Jones’ discussion on the repression of Negro culture in the Deep South, you could contest that this absence is rather indoctrination and erasure. I’d like to focalise country and folk musician, Tracy Chapman and the functionality of a westernised music industry to consider Jones’ implications of a repressed Black American culture in the postmodern era, and assess the theoretical complexities of self-determination, complacency, and the illusion of acclimatisation.
Historically, slave music birthed what would come to be categorised as country music today, audibly recognised by its myriad of string instruments, and anecdotal subject matter, lamenting the hardships of a laborious life in the ‘black belt’. Tracy Chapman’s ‘Talkin’ Bout a Revolution’ exemplifies this use of narrative work, as the lyrics read ‘Poor people are going to rise up and take what’s theirs’. Themes of rejecting the white patriarchal power systems were rich in her work and are continuously reflected in her social activism. As country music began to infiltrate popular American culture in the 1920s, the genre started to become about the confederacy, nationalism, and a blue-collar American life, galvanised by the Great Depression. This chronicles a primary instance of when art birthed through suffering was stolen from Black Americans and commodified to profit the bourgeois.
Chapman rose in popularity following her 1988 hit ‘Fast Car’ on her self-titled album and was the recipient of numerous accolades including 6 Grammy’s. Yet she was never acknowledged by the Recording Academy or Billboard as a country artist. This was until country singer Luke Combs released a cover of Fast Car in 2023, which went to Number 1 on the Country Music Billboard Chart. This was the first time a Black woman was on the country charts, yet critics, fans and country artists alike were still unwilling to cement Chapman as the legendary country and folk singer she deserved to be accredited for. So, when she finally received appraisal, it was under the belt of Combs’ success. By definition of vocal arrangement, instrumentation, and lyricism, Chapman’s records fell under the category of country as well as folk but this concept of striving to obtain the American dream and the value of a nuclear family, was an idea that white supremacists couldn’t attach to a black feminist lesbian that manoeuvred the genre against the grain of normalcy. The recording academy still operates under the same level of exclusivity as Texan Singer-Songwriter Beyonce has experienced the same pushback from her most recent album Cowboy Carter, with country music radio stations refusing to play her tracks. Being told not to divert from genres such as ‘RnB’ and ‘Rap’ underlines the rigidity in which Black women are entrapped in, explicitly erasing them from the cultural narrative while being indoctrinated to believe that this was a space that was never theirs to begin with.
After underpinning the extent of black erasure in the country music genre, we search for a solution that once again integrates Black Americans into culture, adopting ideals surrounding self-determination as discussed by Claudia Jones. Contrastingly, Audre Lorde talks about disillusioned complacency to question the efficacy of black nationalism by means of integrating into American culture. Jones explains that to ensure a ‘complete and lasting equality of imperialist oppressed nations’ is to merge these nations together, in favour of a socially integrated American people. Lorde, however, theorises disillusionment as a result of an increased conservatism by detailing the ‘dangerous fantasy that you will be allowed to co-exist with patriarchy in relative peace. She discusses the myth of acclimatisation for Black women in America, insisting that this ‘co-existing’ is nothing more than a complacent agreement with white supremacy. Our complacency is settling for Chapman’s recognition and accolades within the entertainment industry, having gratitude that a Black woman even had the platform she did because that would’ve never happened a century ago. And as critics admit defeat amidst the backlash against Cowboy Carter and play a track or two on country music radio stations, we settle for what we’ve been given. This ‘dangerous fantasy’ described by Lorde, blinds us to believe that this false assimilation into American Culture is what we’ve been fighting for all along, when in reality it is tolerance that they’ve extended to Black Americans, not equity.
Dispelling falsehoods centring the American dream to justify the oppression against Black people, fuels the erasure of what remains of an American culture influenced by ‘the American Negro’. This theoretical framework employs a refashioning of contemporary country music that rejects the containment of Black women, allowing them to transcend genre and rewrite the narrative that their centuries of repression has erased. Claudia Jones lays the groundwork to theorise how the repression of American negro culture employs us to focalise selfhood and agency as means of resistance against the oppressor. While Lorde builds on this, encouraging us to wonder if the integration is the solution to reclaiming this agency as it exemplifies a passive complacency in the oppressed.
Written by Ashley Zibiza