'We risked it all': Country music's Black voices are striving to be heard

As she waited to go on stage, Mickey Guyton found herself in a position that not even the most confident up-and-coming country singer would envy. It was late July at the star-studded "CMA Summer Jam," and Carrie Underwood was treating the sold-out crowd to a parade of her hits, as fans in sleeveless flannel shirts hoisted beer cans to songs like “Cowboy Casanova.”

Then as midnight neared, the superstar paused her set to bring out a lesser-known artist, who’d go it alone to sing a song that no one heard before.

This scenario was particularly daunting for Guyton, a country singer who’s dared to speak her truth about being Black in America – and has been confronted with the consequences.

As she approached the microphone, Guyton says, “I felt like I was looking out at the people that were in my Instagram DMs,” recalling messages such as “Take your Black ass out of country music.”

“So I was terrified. For all I knew, those people could have booed me out of there.”

https://www.knoxnews.com/in-depth/entertainment/music/2021/09/23/country-music-black-voices-mickey-guyton-kane-brown-darius-rucker/5646962001/