From Love-Struck Outlaws to Flag-Waving Patriots: The Transformation of American Country Music Post-9/11

What was always lurking beneath America’s most classic music genre resurfaced after 9/11. Only now is it recovering.

Written by Grace Robertson

Illustrated by Mimi Reda-Castelao

Before 9/11, the Chicks (formerly known as the Dixie Chicks) reigned supreme. By the turn of the millennium, they had become the best-selling American female band of all time – a feat in and of itself, but also a testament to their popularity. After all, country music has never been America’s favorite genre.

However, one momentous concert in 2003 completely destroyed their career trajectory. Shortly after George Bush started the U.S. invasion of Iraq, the Chicks called him out to cheers and whistles from the crowd: “We’re ashamed to be from the same state as him,” the Texas natives declared.

The backlash was swift and decisive. The Chicks’ career was nearly buried by country listeners, who saw the statement as a betrayal of America. In a poll taken by a Georgia radio station, 76% of listeners said they wanted to return their Chicks CDs, while the group was blacklisted from thousands of country music stations. In Bossier City, Louisiana, protesters used a tractor to destroy the Chicks’ CDs and merchandise. 

On the other side of the spectrum, pro-America rhetoric in country music songs became more prevalent. Country singers fed into the palpable culture of fear and distrust from a terrorist attack and channeled it into nationalist middle America anthems. Jingoist country had taken hold.

Toby Keith’s “Courtesy of the Red White and Blue (The Angry American)” channeled the simmering rage many Americans felt, incorporating some of the classic country music storytelling elements with an added F- you to anyone deemed as “other”: “Justice will be served and the battle will rage / This big dog will fight when you rattle its cage / And you’ll be sorry you messed with / The U.S. of A.” 

Keith wrote the song in 20 minutes directly after the attack of 9/11. It launched him into superstardom, and became the lead single off of his 2002 album Unleashed. Keith’s music and his persona represent the archetypal country music singer: a loud-mouthed backcountry boy who sings odes to the Stars and Stripes and his F-150.

While country was not the only genre that addressed 9/11 (lead singer of Coldplay Chris Martin wrote “Politik,” in which he realizes his own mortality), country was by far the most popular backdrop for waving the American flag.

For country singers, this is familiar ground. In the 1970s, country legend Merle Haggard wrote “Okie from Muskogee” condemning the “hippies out in San Francisco,” and extolling the patriotism of rural America. (“We still wave Old Glory down at the courthouse.”) He claims to have written the song as satire, but it tapped into a genuine loathing of ‘60s anti-war counterculture and became a #1 hit, winning the CMA Single of the Year award.

But in a post-9/11 world, a genre known for deep, often flawless storytelling (iconic examples include “Pancho and Lefty” by Townes Van Zandt and “Fancy” by Reba McEntire), seemed to shrink to a more simplistic version of itself. Partly, this was because of country music’s reliance on radio plays to skyrocket songs into popularity – especially in the early 2000s, like Taylor Swift’s “You Belong with Me” or Carrie Underwood’s “Before He Cheats.” Later, in the early 2010s, Luke Bryan’s “Country Girl (Shake it for Me)” and “One Margarita” (both by Luke Bryan) took over the airwaves, setting a new tone for country music as drinking songs with a side of America-loving pride: “Gonna stomp my boots in the Georgia mud / Gonna watch you make me fall in love / Get up on the hood of my daddy's tractor / Up on the tool box, it don't matter.”

But did this swell of American pride include all of America, which is becoming more racially and ethnically diverse? Segregation in music has deep roots, but country music has long upheld a rural, white image. Charley Pride, one of the few Black artists to achieve country superstardom in the ‘60s and ‘70s, had radio stations refuse to play his songs once his race became known. Charley Pride wasn’t the only musician whose race was on the forefront of his artistry. Music pioneer Chuck Berry started his career as a blues and country guitarist before becoming revered as the father of rock and roll. Hailing from Missouri, Berry produced the jittery guitar riffs he became notorious for. Despite being one of the most famous names in music at the time, Berry was careful to separate his racial identity from his music.

“I made records for people who would buy them,” Berry said. “No color, no ethnic, no political – I don’t want that, never did.”

He carefully edited song lyrics to scrub all traces of his Blackness: “Brown-Eyed Handsome Man” was a series of stories about the pains brown-skinned men experienced in the ‘60s and ‘70s, clearly referencing Jim Crow-era laws and prejudice while not explicitly stating the racial identity of the song’s subjects.

Image courtesy of Ethan Miller

Modern Black country artists still feel this sense of exclusion — that a genre that prides itself on love of America still doesn’t look like America. 

“First, you exclude Black people from the festivals. Then write them out by not recording them. And pretty soon, ‘you have this manufactured image of country music being white and being poor. But when a narrative is that clean, somebody wrote it,’” said Rhiannon Giddens, a bluegrass artist and country music preservationist who’s spent her career advocating for traditional Southern music – which she hopes to remind people is, going back to even before the 20th century, Black music.

In February 2021, TMZ posted a video, supposedly taken by a neighbor, of white country star Morgan Wallen shouting a racial slur at a friend. After the video was released, Wallen’s music was pulled from several platforms, including Pandora and Sirius XM (the ban was lifted after 3 months). He had already gotten in hot water the previous year for public intoxication and flouting COVID-19 precautions in public, after videos were released of him drinking at bars, kissing fans in the streets, and more. SNL dropped him from an upcoming show because of the event, but two months later, he was back at 30 Rock, – cracking jokes about the event that had landed him in trouble in the first place.

“To no consequences,” he toasted.

Despite growing diversity in the country music industry, a study conducted by SongData found that less than .03 percent of all songs on country radio from 2002 to 2020 were by Black women. From 2002 to 2007 BIPOC artists averaged .3% of songs on the airplay. That number increased to 4.8% by 2020. It’s not just the lack of country music artists in the industry that’s the problem – it’s the red tape created by the industry that, in the last 20 years, has become a nearly impenetrable force. 

In 2016, Beyoncé attempted to nominate her twangy ditty “Daddy Lessons” for a Grammy in country music, where it would have been eligible to win in categories like “Best Country Song and Best Country Performance. The song, which highlights Beyonce’s childhood in Houston to the backing of horns, hand claps, and a raw acoustic guitar, incorporates all things South: she sings about the Second Amendment and the Bible (two for one!). She had already performed the song the previous year at the Country Music Awards, but regardless, she was still denied entry from the most prestigious honor in country music.

This isn’t to say that country music isn’t changing. In 2009, Darius Rucker became the first Black American recognized as Best New Artist at the Country Music Association awards. Lil Nas X’s breakthrough hit, “Old Town Road” was a tongue-in-cheek country/rap crossover that took home the MTV award for Song of the Year.” But the song didn’t have a clear path to success; it stirred up controversy after it was removed from the Billboard Hot Country Songs and moved to the Hot Rap Songs chart. A billboard representative told Rolling Stone that even though the song “incorporates references to country and cowboy imagery, it does not embrace enough elements of today’s country music to chart in its current version.” 

Regardless of its classification by Billboard, “Old Town Road” went on to make history. It went platinum 14 times, making it the highest-certified single ever.

In 2021, Mickey Guyton became the first Black female artist to receive a Grammy nomination in the country category for her song “Black Like Me.” The next year, she was snubbed by the Academy of Country Music awards. Although she received widespread acclaim, she didn’t receive a single nomination, and underperformed on the country music sale and radio play charts (it took until 1969) for a Black country singer to reach the top 30 on the charts when Linda Martell’s “Color Me Father” spent 10 weeks on the charts).

So maybe, despite some stagnation in the 2000s, country music is making an intentional turn towards the future – starting first with a redemption arc that’s been two decades coming. The Chicks, released their first album in 14 years in 2020, simply titled Gaslighter.

While it would be satisfying to be able to forecast the future of country music, it’s not entirely clear. Country singers either decisively denounce Republicans and their political agenda, or try to distance themselves from American politics. Though typically non-political, country icon Chris Stapleton recently released “Watch You Burn” (off of his 2020 album Starting Over, that took home the Grammy for Best Country Album this year), a vengeful denouncement of the uptick in mass shootings and a surprise for a genre typically pro-gun. As country music (and the music industry as a whole) moves toward streaming, artists typically underrepresented have the chance to be in the spotlight. Black artists like Kane Brown and Breland blew up on social media before ever hitting classic radio. After R&B singer Jhene Aiko sang “America the Beautiful” in the 2022 Super Bowl, Mickey Guyton took the stage for the pinnacle of patriotic performances: singing the national anthem to an audience of 112.3 million viewers.

As she hit the high notes, NBC incorrectly identified Guyton as Aiko. Clearly, there’s still a long way to go.