Country Music’s Race Problem

Into It: A Vulture Podcast with Sam Sanders

What is up right now with country music and race? There’s the controversy over Jason Aldean’s “Try That in a Small Town,” Morgan Wallen topping the charts despite previously being canceled for saying the n-word, and Luke Combs’ country cover of Tracy Chapman’s Fast Car – which is doing better than the original. Sam talks with writer, sociologist, and country fan Tressie McMillan Cottom. Tressie unpacks why mainstream country music is so, so white, how Black artists built the genre, and the gulf between the vibrant city of Nashville and the regressive politics of the “Nashville” music industry.

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