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Fast Car Cover · Let's Ask the Mamas!

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  We got a question for our American mama. Dear mama, is it racist
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  for a white country singer to cover Tracy Chapman's fast Car song? Well,
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  let's ask our American mama, Mama, Mama, and joining us now our
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  American mama Terry Netterville. So, Tracy Chapman, you remember the song from
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  nineteen eighties? Love the song? I loved it back in the eighties.
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  It's been covered by country music artist Luke Colmbs. Now not that this shoulds
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  and by the way, it's now like shot up to the top of the
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  charts. It was number two song in the country for country music this last
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  week or so. He's just had tremendous success with it. And of course
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  Tracy Chapman then also is having tremendous success because of royalties and things along those
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  lines. Okay, but there have been articles saying, look, Luke Colmes
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  is a white man and he is capitalizing off the work of a black woman,
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  and there's no way a black woman could make it to the top of
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  the charts in country music. And just to kind of to share some of
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  this, here is Luke Comb's version of Tracy Chapman's Fast Car. You got
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  a fast car. We go cruising, entertaining ourselves. Still ain't got a
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  job. So a work in the market is a check aukre. I know
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  things will get better. You'll find working. I'll get promoted and well out
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  of the shelter, buying a house, living the suburb. So I remember
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  we were driving driving in new car speed to fast fell like I was drunk
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  sitting before and your umbeling. I stand around my shooner and I had a
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  feeling that I I love the song. I've always loved the song. I
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  think this is a very good cover. A lot of folks are pointing out
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  the honor he did to the original song by keeping the gender the same.
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  Checkout girl right, not that he's confused about his gender, but he's singing
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  the song the way was intended. M Is it racist for a white man
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  to cover a song written by a black woman. All they had to do
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  is ask her, and she's absolutely laughed it off. She said she felt
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  honored, and it's bringing attention to her song with a whole new generation.
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  You have to understand back then, she wasn't trying to get into the country
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  charts. She wasn't a country artist. It was a pop song exactly,
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  and the fact it's kind of like, um, we talked about Dolly's song
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  I'll Always Love You right when Whitney Houston took it and made it her own.
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  She had bigger, had greater success than even Dolly, made Dolly even
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  more money. So Tracy's like, look this, this is making me banks.
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  You know, she's making banks. She's doing great, but they have
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  you have these woke riders. Of course the Washington Post Emily yaar, she
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  said, this is what draws me nuts. She wrote, as this hit
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  cover of Tracy chatt Men's Fastart dominates the country charts, it's bringing up some
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  complicated emotions and fans and singers who know that Chapman, as a queer black
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  woman, would have an almost zero chance of the achievement herself. What are
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  you talking about? First of all, yeah, when she was in pop
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  music she actually had it was again top of the charts. Absolutely. I
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  think she was a nominated for so many awards for this song it did.
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  What are you talking about, Emily? And by the way, the homework,
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  no one talked about whether she was gay or not back, and she
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  was very private about that. That was another thing that I thought this woman,
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  Emily Yar, she took it upon herself when she says that some it
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  brings up complicated emotions in you, sister, and now you're the one that's
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  trying to make it something it's not. Everybody was enjoying the song, even
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  the songwriter, the one who's brought it to life in the first place.
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  And Tracy Chapman doesn't. She's not like well as a queer black woman,
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  she doesn't mention her sexual I bet you she was offended by that because everyone,
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  everyone in the industry said, she's very private about herself, about her
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  love life, all of those things. And so for this girl to bring
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  you know that this was clickbait. This girl is trying. That's what they
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  do, these writers, these woke writers. They try to find an angle
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  that will put them in the forefront. Which it did. It brought her,
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  you know, now we're talking about her. We never heard of her
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  in our entire lives. But I hope what it does, I hope it
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  repulses people when you try to take something like this, something that was meant
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  for good and twisted into something demonic, something evil, something twisted. I
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  hope it backfires on you. Where you're trying to take something that everybody's enjoying
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  and turn into something that's divisive. Exactly, you're not helping this country out.
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  And someone also said that she was kind of blase about pigeonholing Chapman with
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  a ridiculous word of queer. What if she doesn't want to be identified as
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  that. They're the side that is so bent on using the right pronouns,
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  the right labels. So who is she? What gives her the authority?
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  Well, and one of the other thoughts I've had on this song, why
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  is this resonant? Why is this song resonating now? And I'm wondering if
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  it's because the message in the song, actually it's home for more Americans than
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  it ever has before. Of we're kind of stuck and we just can't get
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  ahead. And even though we got a fast car and we went and we
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  went to another downtown area, another city, but I'm we're still living in
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  the shelter. Yeah, well we are a lot of us are in this
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  world, in this country, are living in poverty. We're on the streets.
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  So I think that it also resonates in that way, like you said,
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  because I when I first heard it I didn't hear it the way you,
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  uh you interpreted it until you told me. Now, I thought,
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  I'm gonna I listen to it again. I thought, oh my gosh,
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  it really does resonate with this world today. Yeah, with with with current
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  society and again a cross culture country music listeners. But my hope is that
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  people listen to Luke Comes version and that they can celebrate the fact that he
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  brought to life a song that was you know, written and sung by a
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  black woman who now appreciates it and she will be making royalties instead of making
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  it some sort of divisive, uh you know, community divisive article for all
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  of us to get all worked up about, right, why not be something
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  that brings people actually together. If you'd like to ask our American mom in
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  a question, go to our website American ground Radio dot com slash Mama and
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  click on the ask them I'm a button turn out. Well, Thank you
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  so much. Thank you