Windsor Star

RAISING THEIR VOICES

Country music has sidelined artists of colour for decades. Black Opry is changing that.

Holly G, a writer and flight attendant from Virginia, has experience­d a lot of surreal situations in the 10 months since she launched Black Opry, an organizati­on and online community for Black country music artists and fans. But one particular moment stands out.

In December, the Black Opry hosted a show at EXIT/IN, a renowned club in Nashville.

At the end of the night, singer-songwriter Allison Russell — who had just received three Grammy nomination­s in the Americana and American Roots categories — invited all the singers in the room to join her, whether they performed or not. Suddenly, there were about 20 artists of colour onstage, a celebrator­y scene Holly never thought she would witness in an overwhelmi­ngly white genre that often glosses over its lack of diversity.

“The whole reason I started doing this was because I did not see people in country music — and that includes the fans, the executives and the artists — that looked myself,” Holly said in a recent interview.

Holly started Black Opry last April, as an attempt to heal her relationsh­ip with the genre. She grew up loving country music, but in recent years, she increasing­ly felt that a lot of people in the industry probably didn't share the same values she did. She wondered whether some singers would even want her to attend their concerts. With a few exceptions, country music has long sidelined Black artists, with labels and songwritin­g rooms filled with mostly white singer-songwriter­s.

So Holly created a website where she could write about artists of colour and help boost their profiles and perhaps connect with other country music enthusiast­s. Within two weeks, she was inundated with messages from singers and fans who wanted to participat­e and support the group, and quickly became a sounding board for aspiring Black artists eager for a community. She got so many requests for concerts that she had to hire a booking agent, which is how she put together the Black Opry Revue for a tour.

“Even though everyone connected online, to see it in person really strikes you in a different way, and it kind of makes all of it real,” Holly said.

“Every time we go to a show, it leaves me speechless because I just didn't ever think I would see people like me making the music that I like.”

But there have been challenges. Plenty of people don't like being reminded that country music has a race problem. Holly doesn't use her last name in media interviews because of death threats she's received for pointing out the racism — and those who turn a blind eye to it — that is still prevalent in the country music industry, even after some Nashville organizati­ons pledged to improve diversity during the nationwide response to George Floyd's death in police custody in 2020.

Jett Holden, who had all but given up on a music career when the coronaviru­s pandemic hit, said that as a Black and gay man, country music executives often told him he wasn't “marketable.”

Then Holly found him on Instagram and urged him not to quit.

The website features profiles on artists who have seen mainstream success such as Darius Rucker, Jimmie Allen and Mickey Guyton, though mostly includes singers starting to make a breakthrou­gh. In early January, the Grand Ole Opry posted a photo of Morgan Wallen making a surprise appearance alongside his friend, the singer-songwriter Ernest. The two sang their new duet, Flower Shops, prompting criticism from artists and fans who were disappoint­ed and angry to see the Nashville institutio­n participat­ing in Wallen's redemption tour after he was caught on video last year saying the N-word.

Holly publicly posted a letter that she sent to the Grand Ole Opry (“A stage that was once a dream destinatio­n for many Black artists has now cemented itself as one of the many Nashville stages on which we know we are not respected.”), which circulated on social media and was included in a wave of news coverage about the incident.

Part of the reason the story got so much attention, she theorized, is that Black performers in Nashville felt comfortabl­e speaking out, leading to a backlash that was hard to ignore.