Yelawolf is also a better white rapper repping the south compared to Bubba Sparxx. He does have countryesque songs more like American You while having a large rap catalogue.
Putting Postie in this ain’t fair dude, he’s got a song with Dolly Pardon, Stapleton, and a few other legends of the genre. Give it its props, ain’t that what critics supposed to do?
Nah bro the reason country is having a rise is because Country continues to stay consistent since the beginning of time and as of right now pop culture is in a drought due to “TikTok” becoming the “it” platform and record labels not having any control over it to manipulate it. So instead of going and signing new artists to develop they sign artists with trendy sounds and or numbers on TikTok which can literally being anything from slowed down version of a song to even the “period ah” girl and NONE of these artists have longevity and get dropped in a matter of months. Unlike with SoundCloud which was a MUSIC platform where people went and listened to full length songs not 15seconds snippets and artists built REAL fan bases and got signed and had a good couple year run. When you step away from the brain rot world of TikTok, genres like Country and Rock continue to thrive because they have a large demographic that steadily consists of older people not following trends. This modern Country wave is a fad and will be gone by next year (not including Morgan Wallen and the ones that have already had careers) and everyone that tried to jump ship is gonna look like a clown and it’s not gonna age well. You can’t fake be country.
That dude‘s reaction reminds me of that episode of the office where Clark is kissing Andy Bernard‘s ass real bad and when Andy’s old acapella group Here Comes Treble singing , Clark jumps up and said “wait a minute… Where is the band?! Cause there’s no way you’re making all that magic with just your mouths!!!!”
Outside of america we're very lost right now tbh 😅 I'm french and here, we listen to american music, like A LOT (I'd say 50% american/50% french). But the main (almost only) genre we listen to (and make) is hip-hop (especially rap). For the vast majority of french people (and most europeans I think), country music is a joke. It represents the "stupid patriotic american" (this is, of course, a s*itty stereotype). So witnessing this change from all of our favorite artists is weird as hell. I'm a huge fan of Post Malone and I just don't understand what he's doing right now (and I did not understand his last 2 albums to say the truth. It's hard to see him as a rapper, or at least a urban music artist these days). Country music is culturally so far from us that it's very hard to listen to. I realize that I hear a lot less american songs on the radio lately. I've lived in Canada for 3 years and I've met some people who actually listen to country music but it was my first and last time. So yeah, that's it. I just wanted to give you guys a small overview of how we feel about this change in the industry here. Could be interesting, or not, you tell me. Peace!
You forgot to mention most of the rappers that switch dont make actual GOOD country-rap songs. Old Town Road was such a success because it was a GOOD song, most of these artists today like Yung Gravy and Post Malone dont make actual good crossover songs. Which is why Lil Nas X became such a big hit. I do think blending genres is a good thing, but for the most part it doesn't work.
Talking about country rap as if it’s a new thing rappers from the main stream are bringing to country is nuts. It’s been around for a while. Yelawolf, jelly roll, haystack, upchuch, Calhoun, struggle Jennings, broadnax, and these guys are just the top of the country rap game. Country rap, being country people rapping… and it’s been around. They regularly have chart topping albums (in the hip-hop category) but you did not mention any of them except washed up bubba sparxx?
Country music shows are way better than rap shows. I never listen to country outside the shows, but it's full of loving people having a good time. Rap shows are all dudes that want to fight you
Bonnaroo Music and arts festival does a pretty unique job of mixing genres and bringing different types of fans together for a weekend. You should go one year Patrick, you'd love it.
If you follow the Country pages/forums. They’re pissed. They feel they’ve been co-opted. They don’t think ANY of this music is Country, they think Nashville lost its way years ago, and that everyone is now muscling in on what they see as a new trend in Pop music, rather than Country music. And now corporations are gonna pump out more and more of these Pop songs with a guitar & fiddle lazily labeled Country, and the authenticity and integrity of the Country genre will be sacrificed on the altar of corporate capitalism - that already happened years ago tbf. When I said they should be happy about the genre’s newfound commercialism, the response was the same…. That this was undoubtedly *Pop music.*
Also, nobody is surprised that Billboard miscategorises songs, they’ve famously been terrible at genre classification in recent years (as has the Recording Academy). Reading their genre charts is always a good laugh: They’ve got Billie Eillish “Birds of a feather” on top of the Rock charts atm, that’s not a rock song. Had SZA sung “BOAF” the song would magically migrate to the R&B chart, there’s no rubric, it’s all vibes based. 😹
