“Where did you come from?” Has been the question lingering in the midst of almost every conversation I’ve had recently. Only some brave enough to reach for it, for fear of causing offense. Even when they don’t ask, I can see the curiosity dancing behind their eyes. It’s a valid question, especially considering that the answer is exactly what it seems, out of nowhere.
Well, perhaps not no where, but no place that you’d expect. I haven’t been working my way up the ladder at a label. I haven't been at college studying the music industry. I haven’t been playing in an obscure band at dive bars in a small town. I’ve been living on loving country music and cultivating a life that I had no idea would prepare me for exactly this moment. The story starts long ego, even before I knew it was the beginning.
The first line in a journal in my closet, written at the age of 12, “this is for MTV Diary in case I get famous as a rapper, singer, dancer, etc.” Never mind the lack of rhythm or vocal finesse, what I didn’t realize that I already knew is that I needed a life submerged in music. I was totally willing to look beyond the fact that I couldn’t even get the Macarena right if it meant that I got to spend my days wrapped in the thing that I knew would always save me, because even at a young age, so far, it always had. I was writing songs on my keyboard, I was scribbling down lyrics on the back of the bus on the way to school. I was choreographing music videos to 3LW songs. By 13, I was scouring Myspace pages and AOL music chat rooms, looking for other people with the same “thing” I was feeling. And I found them. I was using the blank CD’s my mom brought home to burn music from Napster, and putting the music from these “undiscovered artists” I’d found on them. My over protective mother (read: hindsight is 20/20, thank god she kept me close), wouldn’t allow me to walk past where she could see from the front door in our neighborhood. This was extremely detrimental for my distribution plan for my newly formed record label, as that limited my potential customer base to only people who walked past my house. That didn’t stop me, though. I sat at the end of my driveway with a battery powered CD player and a clip board, waiting for someone to pass. Each time I lucked upon a customer (passerby) I’d stop them and ask them to listen to my artists and circle a number 1–10 for each song. At the very core of who I am is a drive to discover and share good music. It sounds trivial in the grand scheme of things, but it has nagged me for as long as I can remember.
Blossoming parallel to this gravitational pull towards the music industry was and equally strong force drawing me in to country music. I’d loved country music since hearing my grandmother hum Achy Breaky Heart while frying porkchops during summer visits, but it wasn’t until I got much older that I realized country music had never loved me back. Over time, every “you like THIS song?”, every “oh wait let me turn this off and put on something you’d be more comfortable with” when I got in a car and Faith Hill was playing, and the lack of women that looked like me, made the message clear: country music wasn’t mine to love. Again, I was not to be deterred.
“What the hell could they bring to stop me, lord” — Allison Russell, Nightflyer
When I wanted to talk to people about country music, they only ever wanted to talk to me about WHY I loved it. I grew tired of proving and explaining so I simply stopped. I kept on loving country music, but mostly quietly. I loved it from an island where (I thought Iwas) alone. I can tell you now, though, there are many of us. Something I didn’t know to be true even just a year ago. but we are here in impressive numbers. Black people, quietly occupying this space. This space that we were told was not meant for us and that has shown us that we are not welcome. The difference now, is that we have abandoned the silence.
A tipping point has been reached, where our reverence for this music, and the talent we have poured into it can no longer live as a quiet whisper from the underbelly of this beast. For many, its been as simple as realizing that we were not alone. That was enough, for me at least. Seeing just one more Black person in space, Rachel Berry specifically, was all the push I needed to be compelled to tear down the dam. I read about Rachel and I searched until I found Rissi Palmer. I found Rissi palmer and I dug deeper and I found Country Queer. I started working with country queer and before I got the chance to wrap my mind around the fact that there were not only Black women, but also other queer people making country music… one of my recent (no longer) favorites dropped the N-word heard around the world and after the months of heart break that had followed the death of George Flloyd, I had had a god-damn-nough. It brought to a head a sense of betrayal that had long been brewing and I knew I could not continue to love country music without a safe place to do so. I needed a space where I could love country music without holding my breath waiting to see if the people making the music I was enjoying were going to so heavily let me down. So I created Black Opry. And when I realized that while it was absolutely necessary, it was simply not enough, I created country any way. Even combined, they are not enough but they are what I can do.
I am no longer willing to compartmentalize my affection for country music and the racism that the culture harbors as two separate things that I can’t reconcile. And what do you do when something you love so deeply is also very deeply problematic? You call it out. You burn it the fuck down. And you build it back up better. That’s what I’m here to do.
