Openly conservative country music signer RaeLynn last week declared that “country music is not racist,” reacting to the narrative surrounding fellow singer Morgan Wallen.
Wallen last year was subject to deplatforming after a secretly-recorded tape was leaked to the media showing the singer on an alcohol-fueled bender calling his white friend the N-word. Still, Wallen’s music continued to climb the charts thanks to fans.
“How did you take it when [Wallen] said that maybe his music, after the incident, was charting so high, because there was a … racial problem in country music?” “The Spillover” host Alex Clark asked RaeLynn, referring to an interview Wallen did on “Good Morning America.”
“First of all, country music is not racist,” RaeLynn asserted. “I’ve never seen that. … I’ve never experienced that.”
“I think that Morgan … is a really good person deep down and he made a mistake,” she continued. Wallen and RaeLynn are both alumni on the talent show “The Voice.”
The singer added that she “knew” the media would spin Wallen’s success as evidence of racism in country music. “I knew that when his music started going to the next level, I knew that was going to be what they said,” she told Clark.
The singer also torched cancel culture more generally, noting that she found herself afraid to release a song about her life, called “She Chose Me,” because it contained a pro-life message.
RaeLynn recalled talking to her husband about her fear: “The fact that I’m scared speaks volumes about cancel culture, because I literally released a song about my life, and I’m nervous for my fans to hear it.”
“You should be able to talk about what you believe in and not get canceled,” she continued. Cancel culture is “not what America is about.”
Ultimately, RaeLynn is not willing to keep quiet about her views. “If I lose a few fans because I’m speaking my heart, I’m okay with that,” she told Clark, “honestly I’m just being who I am.”
So @RaeLynn was recently on a @TPUSA podcast and said how country music isn’t racist because she’s never experienced it. 1/ pic.twitter.com/sNdBy9G1Cu
— Madeleine Molly (@madeleinemollyd) January 9, 2022
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Back in September, RaeLynn released “She Chose Me” to her followers via Instagram.
“‘She Chose Me,’ one of the tracks on BAYTOWN, hits close to home for me in many ways,” the singer posted. “This album’s got a lot of sass and bass but I promised you I will always write from the heart and not shy away from the hard subjects. This song is my heart.”
Taste of Country noted that the song outlines “‘a Bible Belt-lovin’ believer’ who gets pregnant after an extramarital affair with a man on Galveston Bay and, the lyrics imply, considers getting an abortion,” but in the end chooses her daughter.
RaeLynn also praises the joy of motherhood in the album. “‘Made for Me to Love,’ a love letter to her infant daughter Daisy, in January, when she was only eight weeks pregnant,” Taste of Country said. “She says she arrived at the writing session feeling ‘super emotional’ and, despite the axiom about waiting to share pregnancy news until after the first trimester, she told her co-writers that she was pregnant before sitting down to write the song.”
Related: Award Winning Country Singer Comes Out With Pro-Life Song That ‘Hits Home’