Black Music Action Coalition Issues Damning Report on Country Music’s Scant Black Representation

variety.com:

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music CriticThe Black Music Action Coalition has issued a report on representation for Blacks and other people of color in mainstream country music, and, probably unsurprisingly to anyone who has followed the genre and some of its attendant racial controversies, the picture painted isn’t a pretty one.The BMAC issued the damning report Thursday in advance of hosting a panel discussion Saturday at Soho House Nashville, at which point the organization will detail some of the specific changes it is asking for in the industry.“For over 100 years, this country and industry have excluded and marginalized Black people’s contributions to this genre,” said Willie “Prophet” Stiggers, co-founder/co-chair of BMAC, in a statement. “It is our intention with this report to create a truth and reconciliation opportunity for our industry.

We can not heal from the past without exposing the root, the pain or the actual truth.” The BMAC picked up a number of statistics from Dr.

Jada Watson’s “Redlining in Country Music” study to point out the need for systematic change. Among them: In looking at the 411 artists signed to the top three Nashville label groups (Universal, Sony and Warner) over a two decade period from 2000-2020, only 1% were Black and 3.2% BIPOC.

Moreover, over a period spanning 19 years, when a collossal 11,484 unique songs were played by core country stations, only 13 Black artists were represented among all those songs, and only three of those 13 were Black women.Says the report, “The long-standing industry lines that there isn’t enough Black talent, that there isn’t a Black country audience, and that the existing country core won’t embrace Black acts endured so long because Music.