Country music is supposed to be one of the last bastions of American values in entertainment.
Now that is changing under new leadership in the industry.
And country star John Rich issued a dire warning about what wokeness is doing to Nashville.
The major country music record labels in Nashville, Tennessee are going corporate with the same ownership that the rest of the music industry has.
That’s why the outlaw spirit that was found in country music is slowly being stifled by the major labels.
John Rich warns that country artists are losing their creative freedom
Country star John Rich is one of the most outspoken conservatives in popular entertainment.
That’s why he left the major labels behind to maintain his creative control by going independent.
He released his latest album The Country Truth, which hit number one on the iTunes charts last year and featured the lead single “I’m Offended,” which mocked woke outrage culture without a major label’s backing.
Rich told PragerU that country artists are being forced to cave to woke Nashville labels or lose their careers in music.
“The wave of wokeism that’s hit this country, and especially the entertainment business, that made its way to Nashville,” Rich explained. “So these artists are sitting there and they’re being told by their publicists, their managers, the heads of their record labels, ‘Hey, we know that you think these things about America, that you’re against all this woke stuff that we do.’ (They don’t call themselves woke, of course).”
And the pressure from the industry is causing artists to play it safe with their music to appease the record labels.
“‘But we know you’re not really for that. But hey, don’t even think about putting out a post that pushes against that. Don’t you say x,y,z on your microphone on stage. No, you cannot record that song because it says this,’” Rich continued. “And they just completely control these artists. And the artist only has two choices at that point: Do they wanna go have a career? It’s been their dream, do they play the game, go forward and just don’t step on these landmines?”
Rich had a successful career in country music dating back to his time with the band Lonestar in the 1990s.
That gave him the ability to leave the major labels behind but artists starting out in Nashville aren’t so lucky.
“Or, do they go out and hit the trip wires and light the place up? And lose their record deal, and not get invited to the awards show, and radio won’t play them, and so forth, but basically just erase their career. That’s what they’re faced with,” Rich remarked.
Wokeness is killing country music
The Big & Rich singer said that restraints put on country artists by labels are ruining the quality of country music.
“To make authentic art, the artist needs to have free reign over whatever they’ve got in their mind,” Rich stated. “So when you start building walls and parameters and barriers protocols around artists, then the art’s dying at that point.”
Country Outlaws like Waylon Jennings, David Allen Coe, and Johnny Cash wouldn’t be able to make it today with increasingly woke Nashville record labels.
