Latest / Syllabus / Shaboozey, Lone Women & Sinners: Reflections on Country Music & American Western Iconography

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Shaboozey, Lone Women & Sinners: Reflections on Country Music & American Western Iconography · Syllabus

• Ashby: I wish there was still like an app where I could just watch music videos on my TV all the time. So I'm very excited. Coco: I mean it's YouTube, I don't know what to tell you. Ashby: Yeah, Coco: Welcome to Syllabus, the podcast hosted by two recovering straight-A millennials, Ashby and Coco, who live to overanalyze the media and culture we encounter while shedding the gold star culture that made us, Ashby: and occasionally getting lost in a tangent. If you too can't help but think a little too deeply about books movies and more you come across you're in the right place. Coco: We are so glad you're here. Ashby: Let's get into it. welcome back. We haven't recorded in a minute. We had a nice June break. Coco: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Ashby: so this is more of just a chill meandering topic that's like sounds kind of sounded kind of interesting. after and a nice jumping off point from our Summer House episode. So working title in my mind is something like how Shabuzi explains America Which is maybe putting too much on one on one artist that's very popular right now, but Coco: Ha ha Yeah. Ashby: That that's just what I think. I j that's just what I think. Coco: I know, I know. It's always hard when we're starting our episodes We're gonna discover it together. Shabuzi being our entry point maybe into the topic. Ashby: Yeah, so I am interested in this as a longtime country music fan and just seeing this rise, but I didn't really kind of fall into the rabbit hole until we watch the Sierra Miller music video. and it just connected to me with a bunch of other media that I really like. So that's why I suggested the book Lone Women for us to look at and compare, and then of course our Coco: Mm-hmm. Ashby: Love of Sinners, the Ryan Kugler film, as like other interesting visualizations of different people in these contexts, these like music contexts, country western contexts. so yeah, it is. Coco: Yeah, this is a Sinners podcast. I think that should be clear. This is a Sinners slash Stellin Skarsgard fan club that we occasionally veer out. Yes. Get get get get Stellan Skarsgard in a Ryan Kugler film and we can retire. Ashby: Yeah. Well Stan even. Yeah, sometimes we talk about other stuff. Mm-hmm. Then we'll be good. Yeah, so I what got me so interested in this was watching the Sierra Miller Cowgirl video and then learning more about how Cowgirl, the song, and the video are part of this larger concept album that Shabuzi is releasing later this month called The Outlaw Sherry Lee. Coco: Mm-hmm Is it? Ashby: And I just got really excited because I love a concept album. I love a Western. I love Sierra Miller. And I love sort of like these unexpected like when I'm watching the video, it's like this really fun saloon scene, you know, straight out of like, I almost want to say like Westworld, you know, is kind of Yeah. Yeah. Coco: There is a Westworld element, or Westworld is just in our brains, but totally agree. And I do want to just say it is the Outlaw Sherry Lee and other Western tales. I just wanna be accurate, but yes. Mm-hmm. Ashby: that's right. Okay, thank you. Yeah, and I what I really liked about it was that it's a fully like multicultural cast of people. So it wasn't as if Shabuzi and Sierra are the only black people in this saloon. it was a whole mix of different people. And I really loved that creative choice and it looked really fun. Coco: Mm-hmm. Ashby: And I that just was a lovely preview to me for like how the album will play out. And I liked that from the beginning he said like as soon, you know, he knew he wanted Sierra to play Sherry Lee. Like that that was like his vision for this whole thing. and I just love their chemistry together. I think I'm probably on the shipping team. That just it just can't help it. Who how can you not two extremely beautiful people having a great time in a saloon? Coco: I mean it's a little hard to not plus Ashby: That's not my fault. Coco: I was thinking, you know, having just like immersed myself in some shabozy like interviews, watched his tiny desk concert. like it's apologies for bringing mom Donnie into it just so early on in the podcast. But like kind of the smile, like where you're like irresistible smile, the way that like kind of mom Donnie is just disarming everyone by you know, just smiling all c all all around. Ashby: Yeah, same. Mm-hmm. Yes. Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah, same. I like I've I've watched some interviews and read some interviews, listened to some podcasts, and the man has a great laugh. It's incredibly infectious. Coco: Ye yeah. It's a very w coming across again as like a very warm person. There's like something that's very like I don't know, welcoming or or just or just very Yes. Yes. Uhhuh. Ashby: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. It's very sincere, you know. He's ear he's an earnest person, but he's like a good natured person. And i I mean, even the interviewers in The Rolling Stone is like polite to a fault, like he'll ask if he can curse here. He he tears up when he's talking about like accepting his Grammy and stuff like that. And I just think that's that's such a nice, like welcoming Coco: Yeah. Ashby: face, not just in country music, but just presence and personality, just in famousness. Do you know? Coco: 100% agree. Yeah. Not even getting into like the country. I'm like a person that I hadn't like known too much about, had heard, you know, a bar song, Tipsy before. of course, but you know, didn't really know much about Shabuzi before the Sierra Miller collab. and just like seeing like a person that we also recognize as being like really likable, really authentic, like deep, like Ashby: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yes, I Coco: smart, complicated, but like ultimately a person who it loves to have fun, who is like very silly, like join forces with this other person that seems to like match that energy is like really great. A smartest move. I mean like, you know, the Bravo world. We're we're now shabuzy fans. Ashby: So smart. Mm-hmm. It and it it's so true. And I and same. I didn't have a ton of like exposure. I mean, I'd heard the song. but then yeah, seeing the video and just their charisma and their energy together is just like I think it's more of a who is what is that one subway take that's like I think that we should get to choose who the celebrities are. Like we should get to vote for celebrities. Coco: wow. Yeah, I don't remember. There's the subway take that says famous everyday people should be the politicians, but I think there's they're related, yeah. Yeah. Ashby: I like that one too. I think they're akin to each other. But I but it's like yeah, if I could vote for celebrities, then these are the these are the two I wanna vote for. So, you know, I I wanna tune into the stuff Sierra's on and I want to, you know, listen to the Shabuzi album. I want to support the concert and all of that. So so yeah. Coco: Yeah. yeah, I texted you. I was like, I bought tickets. I like don't know that man that much. I just am like, I want to be in that room. Like I just wanna be amongst the people. It sounds really fun. Ashby: It just looks like it will be a fun time. Mm-hmm. Yeah, so I think so like I said, just this is just us talking about like who are our favorite famouses right now. And and Shibuzzi and Sierra sort of just got into our feed and were obsessed, you know, and how can you not be? But but then from my point of view, I feel like I've had like a complicated feelings about country music. I definitely grew up on it. There are a lot of country music artists that I Coco: H Yeah. Ashby: love it is like my go-to comfort listen but it has taken on some like unsavory elements it has it has also gotten very you know watered down diluted become extremely commercial sort of gosh I remember like a super long long long time ago there's that there's this like interview with Jimmy Carter of all people Coco: Right. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Ashby: And he was talking about this sort of hard right shift of the Republican Party and him being like, They're really appealing to the wrong element of this country. And that has always stuck with me. That was something like two thousand three or whatever. And and and I felt the same way. Coco: Yeah. Yeah. Mm-hmm. That's a little bit where the country music in my memory when like where that divide happened is very like Iraq war coded or like the war in Afghanistan, war on terror, I guess is the word that the phrase. and that sh was most of my like conscious aware life, you know? So it's hard to for me to like d parse that out to say like what Ashby: Yes. Yeah. Same. Mm-hmm. Coco: Has read to me as a as a Yankee, you know, sometimes it always felt like, if country music stands for a certain strain of like hatred and hardness and Americana in this very patriotic capital P way. that's seems like that just like totally ignores like the fact that the the history of country music, which I know very little about, though does seem to like originate from like, folk music and like hardship and like things that people really lived and this blending of different cultures in this like different place. Like and it's like, well, that should not get to just be owned by like one ideology or one ideological thread. Ashby: Mm-hmm. Right. Yeah, yeah, I agree. And I've even seen, I think it's even I so I did some polling from a few different sources, but there's even like this one throwaway line in in a paragraph in the Wikipedia about the like history of country music that something like around the two thousands is called the quote civil war in country music, that there has been a really big shift since about the early two thousands between people who sort of like the pre two thousands country and then people in the Coco: Yeah. Ashby: post 2000s country have felt like it took a a big divergence. so yeah, we'll talk about that. We'll talk about that a little bit. But but I I all that is to say that I think that as a person who loves country music, I've definitely stepped away from it in the more recent years because of this perception, because of the commercial angle that the the vibe Coco: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Wait, it's Ashby: But it's been trying to sell. There's this sort of bro country period of time, but then there's also a few people that I think and I'm not the only I'm certainly not the only person to think this. You're not the only person to think this. Like we're picking up on the what they're putting down. Like we we know what they're trying to say. So Coco: Yeah. When someone says, get me to God's country, you know what they mean. Yeah. Ashby: Yeah. You get the idea. So two really influential podcast episodes for me and an influential thinker on this are two Sam Sanders show, one is Vibe Check, one is a Sam Sanders show that I listened to in the last couple of years. And when we decided to talk about this, they I re-listened to them because they came back up for me. One is a conversation he has with the cultural writer Tressy McMillan Cottom. Coco: Great. Ashby: And yeah, he has a conversation with her about Beyoncé's album called like has Beyonce Changed Country? And they do talk about Shouzi in that episode. And they really she really explores like some of the gatekeeping in country music and some of the like, you know, backlash is not the right word, but but like there's some there's some things that people have pointed to in more recent country artists as like dog whistles. Coco: Yeah. Mm-hmm. Ashby: And she points to some of those as well. And that when you have artists like Beyonce and there's more than just Shabuzi. There's there's Kane Brown, there's Rihanna Giddens. Like there is a multicultural establishment of people who are making cool and good and popular country music. But in it's not necessarily in response to, but it certainly stands in contrast to Coco: okay. Yeah. Ashby: There's an element in Nashville that is doubling down on the dog whistle element. And that's turned people off. Yeah. Coco: Well, and I think I think something that I don't have like a thesis about it or anything, but I do think that the policing of the boundaries of who's welcome within country music, it's like it's so threatening like to open that up to be like it's n it includes everyone. I I'm sure we'll we'll get into it. But it feels like it it's to me, when I think about that, I it just feels like there's like a Ashby: Mm-hmm. Coco: insecurity at the heart of a lot of it. That that there's a legacy of like theft and appropriation of like music that does have origins in other cultures that's been like we can't open the gates. We c have to keep the gates closed. in a very white, white centered way. Ashby: Definitely. Mm-hmm. Yeah. You know, that's so funny. That's so funny when you say that because I I think in that interview, Tressy McMillan says that after the Beyonce Cowboy Carter concert, what she said is that her overall thesis of it was who left the gates open? Because and and there is this like there is a feeling of you know. Coco: Mm-hmm. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Ashby: cross pollination and transgression and gatekeeping and then you have some artists like I would even put little Nas X in there. Coco: Mm. No, I'm so interested to hear about the Lil Nas X con of it all because for me when that song was so overplayed, I was not like immersed in it. So I was like annoyed by the song at some point. I went and listened to it again. I was like, the song is a fucking banger. Yeah. And that it like got like approved for like an a an award or a category and then like kicked out of it. I'm just wow. What drama. Ashby: Yeah. Mm-hmm. It is. It absolutely is. Yeah. It's crazy. Yeah, so so she mentions that and and I think yeah, I think these people in just making their music and just doing what they do, they are creating a really refreshing contrast to this old, boring gatekeeping element that is trying to salvage something that my thesis today has never existed, has always been a construction. Yeah. Yes. Coco: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Mm-hmm. yes. And maybe that's partially like the the insecure feelings that I'm picking up on. It's like because it's always 'cause it's a lie and it's kind of paper thin. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Ashby: It's a lie. It's so paper thin. Yeah. And then the other episode they talk about this in is an episode where they discuss the title is country music race problem. And so her and Sam Sanders really get into it. And in that episode they're talking about a song that came out, I think this is twenty twenty three. Coco: It will Ashby: from Jason Aldean called Try That in a Small Town. I definitely encourage everyone to go listen to these two podcasts in full. Yeah. Coco: Okay. I would love to. Yeah. I love her. I and and Sam Sanders is great, but I I really love her. Mhm. Ashby: Yeah, I love her too. I I saw I haven't listened to it, but I saw she also has a Money with Katie episode, where she ties together a lot of things about like kind of grievance politics and poverty and economics. She's a she's a MacArthur genius, She's a writer for the New York Times. Like she's so good. She I listened to it and I was like, damn, I don't even have a podcast now because she's basically made all the best possible points. Coco: That's why we are we are not the authority on anything. We are having the discussion group after listening to the authority. That is the theme of our podcast. Ashby: No. And hence the syllabus is this is this is a bunch of grad students fumbling around in the dark after having done the reading 20 minutes before class and we're synthesizing it the best we can in this 40 minute seminar. So yeah, the Jason Aldean song, it went up in the it Yes, that's correct. Coco: Yes It's not the one where they used like Black Lives Matter content in the video, but it's it's a it's a fuck you to that. Ashby: It's basically that. Yeah. So the whole thesis of the song is he's like, You guys got all these problems in the city, but don't try that in a small town. It's very swaggering and a little bit bullshitty, I think. but the music video contained images from Black Lives Matter protests. He also was singing in front of a courthouse that was the site of a 1900s like lynching and race riot. Coco: Yeah. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Ashby: And then he later pulls the video down and sort of is lightly canceled, but not really. But anyway, Tressie makes this whole point where she's like, that was on purpose. The whole this was to paint him as someone who's getting quote unquote canceled so that there is a a set of people who are then gonna go online and stream him on purpose as a response to the backlash. Coco: A hundred per Yeah. Yeah. Ashby: And she didn't mention this, but I know this. But country music actually has a long history of I know she knows this, I'm just saying she didn't mention it. But as soon as she said that, I was like, that's one of the older marketing tricks. if you go back to our podcast that made us episode, I talk about one of my favorite OG podcasts, which is one of those long form listens that's called Cocaine and Rhinestones. It is the history of country music. And there's a couple of episodes in there that Coco: Mm-hmm. Ashby: shed some light on that. So one of them is on Loretta Lynn's The Pill song, which was one of those kind of cancel me, honestly a little bit like cancel me daddy, I dare you songs. So there was like there was a true backlash was built into the marketing of that. And there are there are others examples One of the ones I was going to bring up is Marle Haggard's famous song, Coco: Okay. Yeah, yeah. Ashby: Okie from Muscogee. This is a song that is tying into the Dust Bowl. and people who were called Okies fleeing the Dust Bowl at that time, going to California, and Oki becoming this kind of slur for poor white people who were living in these shanty towns trying to find work. So I think everybody knows that, but a lot of people don't realize, and there's a great episode of Cocaine and Rhinestones on this that. Coco: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Ashby: He's writing this as satire. He's making fun of a type of person that identifies as an oakie who thinks the type of person, you know, that after one or two beers start saying stuff like, Well, you know, the Irish used to be considered a different race. Do you know what I'm saying? You know what I'm saying? So he's actually that's actually satire, but he played it for a group of Green Berets and he he ad-libbed a line about how they probably don't burn their draft cards. Coco: Yeah. Yeah. Ashby: it this is around the time of Vietnam, in Muskogee, and they all took it literally. And so then it became then it got played as a sort of anthem, but it started out as a kind of satire of this type of person that is leaning too hard into that identity and very often has a tenuous relationship with that identity at best, is two or three generations removed, etc. So and then Coco: Yeah, mm-hmm. Ashby: Additionally, maybe people don't know this, but Merle Haggard was pretty staunchly a Democrat until the end of his life. He recorded a song for Hillary C Clinton's campaign, which is more than he did for any other politician. He spoke out against Trump. And this is a kind of face of quote unquote outlaw country. Coco: Right. Ashby: And I think there's a lot of people who invoke people like that without knowing that history. And they want to claim that in the process of the gatekeeping as these are the outlaws, this is the OG country, this is what it means to be country, but they don't have a deeper understanding. They just see white man singing what they hear as grievance politics without digging further into it. you mentioned this before we started recording, but the follow-up to Coco: Well Ashby: Merle Haggard's song, his single Oki for Muskogia was so popular, is a song that is also kind of co-opted by the bro country crowd called Fight Inside of Me. And it's a very kind of patriotic sounding song. It's nationalist. It's like if you're talking about our country, you're walking on the fight inside of me, right? He didn't want to follow that song up with that. Coco: Well Ashby: He had another song about an interracial relationship called Irma Jackson that he wanted to release. But the record label had a conversation with him to the effect of this will end your career at that time. And he ended up following it up with that more nationalist sounding song. And that has painted him in that light as a result. But there was this, there is a more of a counter strain to conservatism. Coco: Okay. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Ashby: in even the people of country music that some folks want to put on the Mount Rushmore that I don't know that everybody understands. So I think all that is just to say that like Shabuzi is actually not an outlier. And that's like the point that I want to make. It's like he actually fits right in there, you guys. yeah. Coco: Yeah. Well, and and what I was mentioning before we started recording on the like interracial rel relationships of it all is the film Loving from 2016. So wow, 10 years ago. I had no idea that it was actually Joel Edgerton in the in the role of the white man who's in love with Ruth Nega, the kind of black woman. And it's but but the movie Is is really beautiful. I qu I quite loved it. I l I should rewatch it. It was it's it's really for a film that's like a court case, it's it's really kind of gentle and grounded in just like everyday life. but there's scenes in that movie that just show you like kind of poor people living amongst each other, having community, and that being just very natural. And it should not even have to be said. But you know, then there was a court case to break this couple apart, essentially, which they they won. And I'm also looking at the cast now and I can see that Michael Shannon is in it. and also Nick Kroll is in it, which is a strange, strange surprise to see. But give give loving a a a watch if you if you need a good film. Ashby: Yeah. Nick Kroll is like raisins in a potato salad. Like it's just one of those things that pops up when you don't expect it and you go, Huh. Huh. Coco: When he's in like what we do in the shadows, I'm like, Thank you, this is where I expect to see you. Did I expect to see you in loving? No, but Ashby: No. Yeah, and and on that note, in the Tressie McMillan podcast, she talks about a tweet that she made that Sam asks her about saying, country music is America's last race music, capital R. Coco: Mm-hmm. Ashby: There was a time in the recording industry where race music was an actual category. And it was anyone who was not white got put into the record label category of quote race music. And in that process, those black musicians were often stripped of their name. They weren't always given like royalties or rights to their music. And it was not seen as the same. amount of legitimate, but there there was absolutely theft and appropriation from people of color it during that time. And so, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. And but it's interesting what she points out is that race music, Coco: In the same way that there has also been for like like there'd be like rock music, like Elvis, like all these other things too. Mm-hmm. Ashby: Has always been used to refer to people of color as though white people have no race. And the flip of that that she's pointing out is that music that doubles down on whiteness, when all other music, I would say pop, hip-hop, rap, everything is much more mixed, and rock is much more mixed together now, is much more multicultural, taking influences from everywhere. Coco: Mm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Ashby: But doubling down on it in one genre, now you guys are the outlier and you're doing it to yourself. You've created a boundary around country music or a section of country music that's race music. That yeah. Coco: Well, and it feels so tied to sorry, sorry. It just feels so tied to what is the idea of America. So I have to keep everyone else out because country music represents what is authentically American, which is whiteness. Like that t to me feels like the logical jump. That is not the case I'm making. Ashby: No, no, that's it. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. And so the thing I want to point out is that whiteness is itself a mythology. Whiteness and Americanness and like a time before people of color or women or queer people were ever actually like integrated into like you were just saying about loving. Coco: Yes. Mm-hmm. Ashby: People's on the ground everyday life, what Tressy McMillan says is like segregation has always been more of an idea than a reality. certainly there has been like Capital S state-sanctioned segregation. we're not saying that that doesn't exist, but the truth about most people's lives is people just live amongst each other. And the very what she says is the very existence of some people is evidence of that. Coco: yeah. Mm. Ashby: That there has never really been that big of a of a l divide. I mean, even Merle Haggard in the 70s is singing about, an interracial relationship. so everything about the idea of gatekeeping has is it is Coco: Mm-hmm. Ashby: Playing on a mythology that's never been the case, and it's also constructing something that isn't real, it's not a reality of people's lives. This is a fantasy world, you guys. This is as dumb as Game of Thrones. This is it's as made up. This was never true for music, it was never true for the country. And then the other part I wanted to bring into it and why I wanted to talk about lone women in this and sinners is that Shabuzi is very much. Coco: Ha ha ha. Yeah. Ashby: leaning into the aesthetic of cowboy culture. That is his main interest, his like entry point into country music in the first place, is that he is really into the cinematic universe, I guess, of yes Coco: Mm-hmm. Yeah, the iconography and and it he said he wanted he originally planned on being like a screenwriter. Like that was kind of where he was coming. I hope he gets to live those dreams now that he has all this opportunity. But I loved hearing that and kind of it feels very cinematic and you're like, that I can see how these things are are blended naturally together. Ashby: Yeah. Mm-hmm. But it's important for everyone to know that like white people don't own that either. And it is also a construction. So it is actually not weird. It's it's weird as like a person with media literacy when you see this kind of like saloon scene and it's all people of color. It's kind of mentally it jolts something in you. And that's kind of like what Spurred wanted to talk about this. But in actuality, it's not that. Coco: Yeah. Mm-hmm. Ashby: It was actually not that segregated because the Wild West is something that was popularized by dimestore novels, and it was they needed to create like characters and stories and hero iconography, but a lot of it is exaggerated, and the whiteness part of it is almost like a later edition from Hollywood, who has been. building on the dime store narratives. But in actuality, the quote unquote Wild West was extremely multicultural. There are lot of in fact, maybe most of I think I think one of the sources, and I'll put it in the show notes, was like one in four people working on a ranch was a black person or a or an indigenous person or a Mexican person, which I almost want to put together because so much of America Coco: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Ashby: was just Mexico, so I feel I feel like Yeah yeah. Yes, exactly. Coco: Sure, and and like Mexico is also a colonial construction from conquistadors and th like, you know, these are there's indigenous peoples of different varieties. Ashby: But this again goes to point out that like borders are not real. Borders are a construction. Borders of all types are a construction. Genres of music Whiteness The cowboy And what counts as America and when is also a construction. So I just feel like Shabuzy shows up and he is kind of embodying all of these things in a really kind of fun. Coco: Yeah. Yeah. Ashby: Way that appeals to a new audience. He's taking all the fun things from all the different genres and like playing with them. But also, I what I think is so refreshing about it is that he's just kind of like, I belong here. Do you know what I mean? Like he has a real naturalness to it. I'm not, I don't want to compare necessarily to like Beyonce, but Coco: Yeah, yeah. Ashby: Obviously, like we've said, it's very difficult to separate blackness and fame from being political, but he's not centering the political nature of it, if that makes sense. Coco: Mm-hmm. No, I I really loved listening to or or watched, I watched the video version of the Rolling Stones Nashville Live podcast, which I think you also watched, and you hear him t speak about this. and he even says to some extent that like other people will say, like, you don't understand what you're doing. He kind of keeps coming back to the place of like, this comes from like my imagination. This is me absorbing these different like iconography types of things. He talks a lot about fashion. Ashby: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Coco: and kind of the the story kind of emerges from that place. And I think that that's he's not come he does not read to me as someone who's like trying to avoid the politics angle. He seems like he's being very authentic and just like, I'm kind of a storyteller. This is what like feels right to me and it's coming out and other people are like really kind of picking up on like the different layers of meaning that are in it, which is lovely. Yeah. I mean, and he's not overc like Beyoncé is Ashby: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah, I agree. Coco: singular in her her level of kind of certain fame and talent. And so for her, it's not just about like, can I be welcome in a space that is country music? I'm I'm from Texas, like, but it is also like overcoming a career that has been like thought of in other genres. But yeah, the kind of even the the terms around genre are so feel so difficult when you're talking about music. You're like Ashby: Yeah. Mm-hmm. Coco: what is rock, what is alternative rock, what is like folk, what you know, these things that like they do have, you know a musici musical historian would be able to say, like, these are the certain like technical things that make these things different. But I don't think for the common person a lot of it reads as very like cultural signifiers. Like you belong over here, you belong over here. It's okay for you person to like this type of music and not you're not really supposed to like this kind of music. Ashby: Yeah, I think that this sort of mass appeal that like a bar song has, like you could play that anywhere, but it is recognizably like has country elements. Like you could line dance to it, you know, but it also has enough other elements of music. And again, it's like swaggery and fun, and his charisma comes through in like the video and everything. And so I think something about that when people hear that, and it isn't Coco: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Ashby: like pandering to the the gatekeeping type of country. Sometimes there's always like a reactionary Nashville backlash to that as like selling out or not really country. Unless I I think there's probably some subtext there about this is not a traditional looking country person the way we've defined it. But I also think there's a a feeling that people have of if you're Coco: Mm-hmm. Ashby: If you could be played in all these different contexts, then it's not really country. That country has to be exclusive of other other sounds or other appealing to any other type of audience. And I think that's what we're saying, people find very threatening. But it's w also what brings people into the genre, you know, it brings new people there. And I think that's what they don't like. Is they're like, hey, wait a minute. This was a party for just us. And now you're making Coco: yeah. Ashby: Now you're having another party next door that sounds a lot like us but better and more people of different varieties wanna come to that. No fair. Like that's it's a bitterness, you know. So there's like a lot of different like stages in the development of country music to where it is now. And like many things, it is not super linear. It's like it's like, you know, over here rockabilly is happening while also barn dances are happening in this part. And then eventually that melds together as the technology develops for records after Coco: Mm-hmm. Ashby: After there's a kind of economic incentive that actually comes from jukeboxes, which believe it or not, is also tied to gambling and pinball machines. If you want to know more about that, that's where I would recog recommend the cocaine and rhinestones podcast because it kind of traces that the economic interest of country music and how it got to where it is, but it really started there with like the rebels and the outlaws wanting to quote unquote gamble with these pinball machines. And then in those same joints and the same technology allows for jukeboxes, jukebox plays, it starts to get translated into this is the music that's popular. Then later that that type of thing gets translated over to the billboard charts and then that Coco: Mm-hmm. Mm, mm. Ashby: goes into what's what they start pressing into records that individual people will buy. So there's this fascinating like trajectory of how we even got to where this became like a machine, like an economic industry. But but it has always kind of, like you said, pointed to it's always kind of supposed to I I'm not the person to say this. Tracy McMillan says this. Coco: Wow. Yeah. Yeah. Ashby: Where she's like, it's poor people music. Like it originated as like poor people music from these working class places in like Appalachia and in the South. And so the things that you hear, the banjo is originally an African instrument. the fiddle, an Irish instrument, and some general British colony, like folk music that's brought over that starts to develop the like hillbilly Coco: Mm-hmm. Ashby: Bluegrass music there. And then all those things get blended together. And then a lot of people don't know this, but the steel guitar or the Dobro, those are Hawaiian instruments that came from people going to California and meeting people from Hawaii and that mixing together, like the sort of workforce movement to California there. Coco: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah. Uh-huh. Ashby: And all these things get mixed together. And then of course it's impossible to not hear the like ranchera beat from like New Mexico and Texas and Mexico. that's always in there too. Coco: Mm-hmm. It's definitely. I I wanna talk about the a bar song just like for a second. where I know that it's like my baby wants a Birkin, like that it opens with that line, but then it's like gasoline and groceries. Like, why am I working this nine to five? Like it's there's an economic message at the very beginning of the the song. And the the tone of the song is like not a hyper individualistic story. It is about like Ashby: Sure. Mm-hmm. Coco: All of us at this bar together. Like there's like a community element to it. And I think if you watch the music video, it's like super simple pared back. It's just like kind of him singing to the camera and then people kind of partying in the background, like outside what next to a truck or something. Like super simple. But it starts with his like facial expression being kind of melancholic. And then like it kind of breaks into this joy. And like it's just Ashby: Mm-hmm. Coco: I I see why this connects in like a 2024 up until 2026. There's just something to it that is like, we're all in it together. And again, he's not coming with like, here's my political message. We should all be socialists. The real enemy is the capital owners. But like there's something to it that feels that way and also feels threatening. Ashby: Mm-hmm. Yeah, I wanna I wanna grab a quote here from some like country legend. But here's a quote from Bob Wills and his Texas Playboys, who is like an O absolute OG in the country music scene, talking about honky tonk music, which very much is a lot of what I hear in Shabuzi's music is leaning into the honky tonk element. Coco: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Ashby: But Bob Wills and his Texas Playboys personified the honky tonk music. This is from the Wikipedia, and he described it as a little bit of this, a little bit of that, a little bit of black and a little bit of white, just loud enough to keep you from thinking too much and go right on ordering the whiskey. Coco: Yes That's good. Ashby: And if that's not shaboozy in a nutshell, like I don't know what to tell you. Coco: Okay, I did love I love that Shabuzi was also like kind of s was say right talking about riding Cowgirl, but was also a little bit like you can hear it in the bar song and or a bar song I should say, but is like he's like, Well, you know who you know what ladies love? They love wagon wheel. And it's like, let me create a song where the girls love to sing this song. And there is something that radiates from like the kindness of that comes through in the music that is like Ashby: They love wagon yeah. Coco: I like to see the women have fun is is compelling. Mm-hmm. Yeah, it comes across across the board. Yeah. Ashby: Mm-hmm. It is, it is. And you hear it in some of his other songs too. Like he's and he said he says in the interview, he's like, you know, I'm like, we gotta have a song for the girls. And it's true. A record has to have a song for the girls. But he said that came from him playing, like just playing shows where he would do covers. And the two covers that he said people go crazy for are Zach Brown bands Chicken Fry. Coco: Yeah. Yeah. Ashby: And also Wagon old Chrome Medician shows Wagon Wheel and almost every review. Coco: Mm-hmm. But also I think mostly famously redone by Darius Rucker. Uh-huh. Ashby: Yes, exactly. A another important thread to pull on here. every single review will say Shabuzy sounds like X plus plus wagon wheel. Like he's really Coco: You know, I was I was just going for a walk with the dog though, and someone was playing Ho Hey by the Lumineers, or it's Hey Ho. I don't remember. And I was like, actually, there's something really in this that does feel like shabuzy adjacent, because it's the stomp clap maybe of it all, and it's the the c the the chorus of people singing that sounds like you're just at a party, like you're at a bar. Ashby: I'm so glad you brought that up. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Coco: Or like you're at like someone's barn party or whatever. But it's also funny to think about how the lumineers fit in this like little category over here, very far away from country music in the way that they're spoken about. and and all Edward Sharp and the magnetic zeros, all these kinds of maybe like kind of indie folk that we would talk about them as if they were totally divorced from country music. Ashby: Mm-hmm. Yeah, I thought about that too. the Tressie McMillan talks about how she's on the board for the Americana Awards. There's like an Americana Academy and more artists that are kind of outside of you know like commercial bro country are starting to lean more in the Americana direction and there's like new they have lobbied for different award categories in the Grammys and Coco: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Ashby: the country music awards. And so a lot of these artists will gravitate that direction. And it is a place where you see a lot more indigenous artists. That's where they want to play to. Like those those are the that's the charts they're seeking out. Those are the audiences that they're seeking out is a is what they're calling Americana. So I think those things lean more folk. And I absolutely hear that influence also in Shabuzi's music. What I think is different is that his songs are shorter Coco: Okay, that makes sense. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Ashby: than folk music. They don't have long, I don't want to say gratuitous solos. they're they do have they do have as like some bridges, but they're or a couple of fiddle interludes that are very recognizable, but they're not quite as like gosh, I I don't wanna sound like I'm denigrating it, but they're not they're not as focused on the music mus musicality of the musicians. They're not highlighting that so much. Whereas like Coco: Sure. You're denigrating anything. I think it's yeah Ashby: It's a it's it's a song for drinking whiskey in the bar with your friends. It's a s it's a party song. It's to shake your ass, okay? This is that booty shaking summertime, fun music. Yeah. I gotta say that it's catchy. That is the part that replays in my head when I'm in the shower. It just it's a catchy ass line. It's so it just the whole rhyme sh it's just really gets stuck in there. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Coco: Yeah. It's got something in the back, something serious. Yeah. Love it. And I also love a bar song now because I've listened to it so many t like I'm just like, I love these songs. They're so good. Okay. Yeah. Ashby: But I do hear the Lumineers part of it. And I just wanted to add that in the in my reading about like the sort of overall development in the two thousands of like country and folk music, someone referred to the Lumineers as quote unquote neo-hootiny. And that made me laugh and was so accurate. Coco: that's so funny. That's so fun. Like I I'm not gonna like I'm not gonna like defend the lumineers. I could actually very much understand someone finding it cringy, but like when it came out, I was twenty two, twenty, twenty-three, twenty-four, and I loved it. And I saw a concert and I was just adored it. Ashby: I I get it because y you're listening a person that has grown up grown up in the south with a stadium stomp clap and at different sporting events, it's always gonna have a place in my heart. I gotta say I've always found the like Mumford and Sons the the Lumineer strain of music to me, I once heard it described as steerage on the Titanic and I can't unhear that. And for me Yeah. Coco: Well. Mm-hmm. Okay. Poor people music though. Ashby: It's four people music. Absolutely. I get it. I I have to say that Coco: But it also is stained by hipsterdom, which is a an appropriation of poor people culture that is totally fake. Ashby: That's true. That's not It's unfair. But I I gotta say that that's not my my favorite type of music. And I have to I've listened now to a lot of Shabuzi's songs, his like top songs on Apple Music. And I would say this is where I show my hand that like those are not those are not my favorites. Like this is not what I come to country music for. I do like more of a steel guitar, but the two pop popular ones that are on the radio, I can appreciate Coco: Mm-hmm. Ashby: for their like danceability. And then I do appreciate his like storytelling elements. Like in some of his other songs, I can appreciate that. But the stomp clap part of it is honestly, I initially some of his other songs I probably couldn't differentiate from the Lumineers. Like when they would when they would be on, I wouldn't know that that was Shabuzy. Like just letting it play. Coco: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. No, I I think when we were texting about what you come to country music for, I mean, would love to hear more about it. but I I was thinking about like back when I was like a teenager, like in college, I feel like I was going on this like journey, like, And you know, then you'd come across things like country music or like Johnny Cash, like and then you'd be entered into this world where Ashby: Mm-mm. Coco: it's really the stunning talent, like the stunning voices and like the the musicianship, like that part where like it's so incredibly beautiful that it it then you you're attracted to it and then like later on culturally you feel like, well, do I if I like that, is that like liking like things that it might be racist? Like there's just like a whole mixture of messages there. But you know, f enjoying like thinking about this topic and feeling like actually like I should go listen to that stuff. Ashby: Yeah, and there is like like Loretta Lynn's Fifth City, Loretta Lynn's The Pill, like they're Johnny Cash has a song. the ballad of Ira Hayes. That is one that will really stick with you, about a Native American, there is like a there is a countercultural strain. I mean, Woody Guthrie famously has the guitar that says this machine kills fascists. Like that, it's there. That's legible. It is there. It it what's really interesting though is the way that the marketing in recent years has become so legible to every regular consumer. Coco: Yeah. Ashby: that when you Coco: huh. Ashby: hear country music or Nashville country music and you like see the you see the aesthetic of it, it I it's fascinating to me that every single person has a a conception of country music as like white broy leaning into like nationalism and rural grievance. Coco: Yeah. Ashby: And I think that's so interesting because it's actually not what country music is, but they've had such success at marketing those things that every single person knows that to be like the shorthand for those things. And but but when you like actually look into it, it's more than that. Yeah. Coco: Yeah. The very like, let's say, like high dollar, high dollar, like money, money, money, like country music often sounds like pop music that is with a twang and the lyrics are about a truck and a gun. Like, you know, some of that stuff, or God or whatever it might be. but so it's funny that it's like it can veer so it's very feels sounds very produced a lot of the times, like a lot of technical, you know, manipulation has gone into it. Like Ashby: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Coco: And so it's funny that they can go it can go in that direction, but it's it's not about where they can go, it's about who can come in that gets like kind of more policed. but it does my my metaphor that's coming to my mind is like it's like a you could say like Christianity is one thing, right? But the megachurch is a different thing. And sometimes it feels like country music is the more like w what is the the origins of it? Like it is very different from this very capitalistic kind of pursuit. Ashby: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yes. Mm-hmm. Yeah, or it's like, you know, like a quilt or something where it's like it's all it's all one thing, but each individual piece or it's more of like a spectrum. You know, there's there's this element and yeah, you do have to kind of question like how much how much does the part that you like tie into the part that you don't like? But but it is more complex than that. one of the things that I that I think is so Coco: Mm-hmm. Ashby: interesting is the the rural component. So people will talk will like just naturally associate, you know, the South and ruralness generally with country music. And Sam Sanders talks about this in in that conversation that he has. And she makes such a good point that I did just want to bring up, which is the re part of the reason for that, and if you go read more about the c history of country music, has to do with radio stations. Coco: Mm-hmm. Ashby: So radio stations is radio DJs, even now, I mean, not as much with streaming, but still even now have such primacy in being the gatekeepers and like hit makers of country music, and they always have been. And so radio stations are a big part of that. And there's like a point in time where the FCC grants different radio waves to rural areas. For a long time, rural areas could only get like a section of the AM spectrum and Coco: Mm. Ashby: It only it would only it was lower quality. And then later they get access to a richer band of FM better fidelity stations and AM starts to go more talk radio. And so that's really the like explosion of country music radio. And radio is so important in rural areas versus urban areas because for the early part of listening to music, recording equipment was bulky, heavy. And pretty much exclusively owned by rich white people in cities or s or suburbs. And so a lot of like poorer people just didn't have access to anything other than the radio. The other thing is that in rural areas, and then there's actually a whole subsection of the timeline of country music development called trucking songs. And they're very recognizable like for the they're you know, they're made by and for the sort of blue-collar guy that drives a truck, okay? Coco: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Ashby: They do have actual artists who were truck drivers helping write some of the most famous ones, but then the record recording industry picks up on that and they start selecting songs that are, I think the quote was literally like that you could that have the cadence of a long drive and also that are don't have distracting music elements so that they can be heard and enjoyed in a loud truck stop diner. So they're like starting this like this symbiotic relationship. But then, you know, what Tressie points out and what all of this is coming to is you're in the car for a long time. You're driving 30 miles to the Walmart. You're gonna just turn on the radio, especially if you have like an older car. I mean, I know my first car was a 1995 Ford Ranger that did not have a CD player. It had a tape deck, and I had to have like a very complicated. Coco: Yeah. Mm-hmm. Ashby: system of chords and adapters in order to listen to my little C D player through through the tape deck system. So the radio becomes your becomes your option. And so I think that is is like the through line there. And maybe it's not a connection that everybody's made. But like yeah, if you're driving 30 miles to the Walmart, like Shibuzi comes on and I just feel like it breaks it up nicely. Coco: That is the ta if you're like me and you're like, let me just put on Spotify, which again is has not necessarily been curated by a human. It's curated by an algorithm when you go ahead and hit that like shabbuzi radio station on Spotify. There is a little bit of I have a little Ashby: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Coco: sensitivity where you're like listening to it and then you're like, well, like what does this you know, that's that's my my liberal elite neuroticism that I need to work through, which is like listening to a song by someone doesn't necessarily mean too much. But I do have a a little red flag about it. Ashby: Yeah, so I so I think that it's just helpful to understand how all these things were just constructed from the get-go. And Shabuzi just shows up and is like enjoy he's playing. He's playing in the tropes, he's playing with like being a cowboy, he wants to tell a cinematic story, he thinks of himself as a storyteller first, and those are the fun parts. That's the fun part of country music, you know? And I think Coco: Mm-hmm. And he also was tried like rapping, like did like other I mean does maybe rap stills in his in his music, but like kind of comes from a different angle and like has Nigerian parents, like you know, he's first generation American, like it is a different like entry point, but it's also like the most American story to some extent. Yeah, yeah. Ashby: Yeah. Mm-hmm. That's exactly right. That's that's what I wanted to say is just that his entire existence here is so the actual story of America and he so embodies the like actual experience and development of country music. Not yeah. Coco: Well, and I loved what and I loved what he says about the fact that like hip hop and country music share so much in common. There's so much storytelling. There's so much about like survival, there's so much about you know, that there is like a a specific aesthetic that like reads across, you know, these different genres. So I think, you know, hearing like there is like a really natural flow and overlap between the two of them, makes a lot of sense. And it's music that does also like come from like like a like a poor community, like Ashby: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Coco: element or strain that's there. That I did learn that a bar song comes from this song, which I did not know. Yeah, I did not know. And my millennial heart lost its mind. So this is just Ashby: Jayquan. I this is one of the big reasons I like it. the refrain of everybody in the club getting tipsy. Yeah, two thousand four, you must understand, was a very big year for me. Okay. I'm a freshman. Coco: The same exact age as Jaquan, I looked it up. Ashby: And this song was huge, huge. I love that It's like it's interpolated, but it's a country beat. Coco: Yeah. It's still doing like the one to the two to three two to four the counting as well as the like everybody in this Vitchkit and tipsy versus like the bar. Yes, it's I had I d could not have put those things together. I had to read about it. Ashby: Yes, yes. Yes. But it but it's so brilliant because it it taps into the millennial nostalgia. And so that's the thing is like it's feel good music that understands like millennials, Gen Z, I don't think we have as much baggage about genres. I don't wanna say that there's none of it, but I just don't think we do. We just like what we like, you know? putting those two things together is so smart because it just says, you know, I'm here and I know what's cool. I know what's fun. I know you bitches want a two on a two step beat with a fiddle. And I also know that you all none of you ever forget now that's what I call music 2004. Okay. Coco: Ha ha ha Think a lot of people were born in 2004 at this point who are listening to music, which is terrifying. But no, I definitely like obviously like whatever song is on TikTok is like what people know, and that could be coming from any genre at this point. I do Ann Helen Peterson always covers like Rush, and it's crazy to see these different sororities create these dances to songs that are like totally from different genres or from different time periods. And yeah, I agree with you that there's like Ashby: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Coco: not the rigidity and so if there's not the rigidity just from like honestly exposure like what your friends like then then the then the enforcing of the rigidity is more apparent or something. Ashby: Yeah, and there's this really great quote from the Rolling Stone article from one of the contemporaries, Coco: Mm-hmm. Ashby: this black husband and wife duo called War and Treaty. about Shabuzi and like why why he thinks that he a has such like an easy appeal to just a regular working class group of people. And when I and honestly, when you're saying working class, you all I know that this is a little bit skewed in America, but you also kind of mean working age. And so I I do think there's like a little bit of like baby boomers kind of on the Coco: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Ashby: way out in terms of being tastemakers and like being the kind of people that charts and the markets are appealing to quite as much. And so what Michael Trotter of War Intrigues says about Shabuzy is that he represents two important things for country music, retribution and forgiveness. And so here's the quote from the article. He brings retribution to say, I told you we belong here and I told you we could do it in a big way, Trotter says. It was really cool to see this young black figure come and take over that way. But Shibusi also represents forgiveness. Some people will say that's not country music, but Shabuzi comes with no judgment. He comes with an open heart, an open mind, an open arms, and he's like, I just want to tell my three chords and the truth. He is the American forgiveness story. He's the son of our ancestors that are coming back and saying, It all belongs to us, man. So That's like really what I wanted to point out is because I know when I go back home to a small town in the south that my fourteen year old little cousins love shabozy. They want they are making their their Alexas play Shaboozzi 247. They they are playing it on their phone, you know, and it just there's nothing there's no no one is questioning. Coco: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Ashby: his place in the genre. It's just that's what's good. I know that if I go in my small town, there's like two bars and they have like hot wings and beer on draft, right? I know that on the night that they are letting their one singer songwriter in town Tyler something, whenever they're letting Tyler something take a break, they're just putting on a mix of two thousands millennial hits And like shabozy. I know that that's what's gonna come on in the interlude and people are gonna lose their minds because it just is it just hits that and and people identify with it and they don't feel they don't feel self-conscious, you know, but at the same time, it I I do think that Tressy makes a good point that the presence of black people in certain genres Coco: Uh-huh. Yeah. Ashby: endorses the cool factor for a lot of people. And and what the challenge has been is to then actually, you know, incorporate black people into the spoils of that, that they should also get the credit, that they should also get the ownership and the legitimacy. Coco: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Ashby: But I just want to say that it is not it to our point about how people just live amongst each other and segregation is more of an idea. As well as a marketing tactic than it has ever been anyone's real like lived reality, in the small southern town I grew up in, in my high school, all these guys that were in FFA loved rap music. to see. Coco: I do not know what F F A is. Ashby: sorry, that means future farm of America, which is a if you've ever I'm sure you're familiar with like 4 H. They're basically the same, the same thing. so when you see like, you know, Josh something roll up in his jacked up Tacoma, just blasting for us it was Mike Jones because we love the the Texas Houston Chopped and Screwed 2000s music. it's Coco: Okay, thank you for clarifying. Yes, huh, mhm, mhm. Ashby: It's a little weird to see that guy get out with his shotgun mounted to his truck, you know? But they all they have always loved it. You know, it they've always loved it. Coco: I know but mm hmm. It's also the same thing with like the white frat boys that yeah that you could mm hmm. Yeah. Ashby: Yes. And so I don't so that's the thing is that I think there's a policing of genres at the top that I don't think is necessarily the case at the bottom. Now, I do think it's important, again, that like people get their due and that they're not like appropriating the music, do you know what I'm saying? Coco: Well, do they say the do they say the N-word when they sing along? Like there's a lot of things that kind of goes into it where it's the same thing about like, you know, even like white sports fans that love football but are very racist even if the teams are largely made up of black men. Like there's a lot of ways in which white people enjoy the entertainment factor of black artistry or athleticism or whatever it is, while Ashby: Also important. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Coco: maintaining their like very racist beliefs. And I never want to like excuse the racism of everyday people that like is truly disgusting. Like in and and to also kind of maybe like get to a some something that says like the the racism of dividing communities against each other does benefit a wider system of like Ashby: That's exactly right, yeah. Uh-huh. Coco: Profiting and making money and keeping people divided from one another so they cannot align and form solidarity, which is threatening. And I think that's what like something so so just effortlessly charming and comfortable about Shabuzi that is also somehow like threatening in like this very good way Ashby: Mm-hmm. Well, no, I know what you mean. It's it's challenging and but in a in it's it's pushing for an evolution, you know. And but yes, I I that's that was kind of like my point, is like what Tressy says is that, yeah, white people love black culture. They don't love black people. And so that is why we have this history of black culture and black music and black creators having their art appropriated and not given Coco: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Ashby: the material due that it deserved in the but also the like cultural legitimacy among white people, that it's been repackaged and sold to them as this is for you and this is for you. I think what Shabuzi does so well is just put it all together to where it doesn't seem weird. There isn't truly a big separation. It's just totally naturally there that every every element here belongs. And so that's what just what I like to see. And then yeah, on the little Nas X side, that's th to me, that's what I hope the future looks like. Lil Nas X run for president. I want a fun Coco: it's slow natural. Yeah. Mm-hmm. No, Lil Nas X just recorded a video about getting a mental health diagnosis and being like, I'm sorry I've been gone for a while, I'm back and I figured out myself, but I don't want to put that on Lil's Nas X Ashby: Yeah. But I'm just saying, like that that's what I hope the future looks like is just like fashion forward, confident, queer artists of color. That's all I want to see. And I mean, I do think that he was treated really unfairly and he sort of like maybe walked so that Shibuzi could run because his song is like still the record hole. I mean, that really says something, right? That like a country the two of them have the top Coco: Yeah, yeah. It's the two of them. Nineteen weeks. Ashby: longest running songs. So that's what I'm saying is like the advertising construction of what country music is and what they like is clearly not correct because there's a the what listeners are saying is, nah, this is what we want to listen to. and but I do think he was kind of like unfairly maligned at the time and like almost like wasn't ready for him. But it's it's that age old thing of gatekeeping where it's like one, two, three pushes on the door. Coco: Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Ashby: basically. I also th I also would probably put Beyonce up there too that that I think she was kind of rejected from the country music establishment and that that trickled down to a rejection by country music listeners who just didn't know what to do with her I don't think they have a real I I don't know that the average country music fan understands how much Beyonce puts into like music theory and music history. Like she was having legends on her album. and she was like she was bringing in some really like esoteric like country music history head stuff. So I I think it probably went over a lot of people's heads. But they do have a good conversation on the Sam Sanders show about how Beyoncé isn't does not speak to the like politics of her music, but that maybe she should. Coco: Mm-hmm. Ashby: And also how by not accompanying her music with her words, it's not legible for what it is. So it lets people read into it whatever they want, you know? But if she had actually sort of promoted it in her own words, I'm not saying she needs to appeal to the average country music listener, but I do think there could have been additional richness there. Coco: Mm. Ashby: If she had actually defended it in a way, rather than just like here, here it's just an overnight drop. You either like it or you don't, you know. And she did get album of the year, so it's fine. But it's just, I don't expect to hear Beyonce in the small town pub. Do you know what saying? Does that make sense what I'm trying to say here? I don't think she's embraced as much. that I don't. Coco: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Mm-hmm. I mean Beyonce might read as elitist in a different way. but I do think if you listen to something like the single Texas Hold'em, it it is s accessible. Like it just is immediately enjoyable and accessible. But there's a lot in there that is very artistic and yeah, like historian driven that is if you know, you know, but if you don't, you're gonna have to go read a book before you can, yeah. Ashby: That's really the thing. Mm-hmm. people Mm-hmm. If you don't Coco: Really get everything out of it. Ashby: Yeah. So that's the thing is that I think obvious obviously Beyonce has the technical and the critical chops, okay? Nobody isn't saying that. She I do think that she made a incredible almost like homage to the history of country music and and black people's contributions to it. Like I think she made a beautiful like piece of art that encompasses all of those things. But like its ability to appeal Coco: Mm-hmm. Ashby: to sort of like working class rural people is a little bit limited because for one, like sort of like the Taylor Swift album, it was very long. So not not everybody, not everybody got through the whole thing. And then and then yeah, I I have I've kind of long had a theory I'm probably not the only person to think this, but you have more success going from country music and then getting a pop crossover and then staying there. Coco: Yeah. Ashby: It's much harder to come from pop or rock and cross into country music because it's like it's sort of defined by what it's not. Does that make sense? Coco: Mm. Ashby: Beyonce's a billionaire. So it's a little hard to then like go from that status to then putting on the boots and the Wranglers. And you know what I mean? Like I I Coco: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean she is like thinking about dive bars and you're like that are been cleared out for you ahead of time. Yes. Ashby: Hard to hard to believe. Hard to hard to believe. Now, I mean it it's gosh, I feel like it's something that you can understand, but it's hard to articulate because obviously Shabuzi is also singing about a Birkenbag. So it's like, you know, it it's it's hard to articulate, but there's like Coco: Yeah. Well, I I actually like that line. I think it's saying I I wish I had the exact line in front of me, but it's like it's like my baby wants a Birkin, but like the gasoline and groceries, like this shop nine to five isn't working. And it's like, well, I do think that's relatable. I think there's so many people, everyday people who have a aspirations for luxury goods, like that that is relatable. And I mean I think that also is like partially like, you know Ashby: It's like aspirational is the thing. Yes. Mm-hmm. Coco: the type of lyrics that you do here in like hip hop songs. Like that there's something that kind of is a crossover there. Ashby: Mm-hmm. And I think that's what he's done s done so well is he's like he's like, yeah, there are obviously commonalities in the lived experience of the people that make both genres of music. And part of it is like economic oppression or economic anxiety, I guess you could say. It's it's they're coming from different material conditions of their life. Yeah. However Coco: Yeah. Yeah. the material conditions of your life are yeah. Ashby: What I have always seen is that hip hop has a kind of like fake it till you make it attitude. It's like swagger first and then you manifest it, versus what country music often does is the opposite, where it's like, we don't need that. That's the type of thing that people who think they're better than us want. Like the the famous example in my mind is the the popular single from Gretchen Wilson, which was Redneck Woman. Coco: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Ashby: That was on the airwaves when I was in high school and I think high school. And the famous line was, I don't need Victoria's Secret. I can get the same thing on a Walmart shelf half price and to make my man want me. Which is, you know, she's not saying I have the Birkin, she's saying I have the Walmart Birkin, and that's good enough. So I so yeah, there's a rejection of elitism that's there. And I just think it's yeah. Coco: Mm-hmm. Which which feels very hollow when it is done by the like the mega church version of this. That and then you're like, what are you talking about with your your rhinestone jeans multimillionaire? Which is a stereotype in my mind. specific person, but it mm-hmm. Ashby: Yes. What are you even saying? Mm. Yeah, exactly. all of that is just But all of that is a construction. Like they're they have an idea of what the country music audience is, and then they make the songs to appeal to them. One of the most illuminating things from the discussion on the Jason Aldean song is is like what was the calculus here? He was thinking about what who is the audience he's trying to appeal to. And then what I think one of the real ones of country music, Jason Isbull, came out against Jason Aldeen and said, You didn't even write this song. So Coco: Mm. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Right. Yeah. Ashby: Who cares if you get canceled for it? This isn't even like your real Say it with your chest if you think that, but you didn't even write the song. And so what they say in the interview is like, I don't know if Jason Aldeen is a racist, but I know that racists think he's a racist because there's a type of person that is marketing these songs that are literally written in Nashville by known hitmakers, and then they up they pin them to people that they think they're gonna be popular with. Coco: Mm-hmm. Ashby: And so when we say that the average country music s Nashville product is a product, they really are. They're c from the boots up, they have been constructed for you as a product that you consume Versus like Shabuzi, who's like writing his songs and has an idea of what he wants the the sonic sound to be. He wants to do a longer form record that's a storytelling thing about a Western. And that is that's just it's just coming from a different a different place, you know. So that even the even the people that are play acting to the gatekeeping genre side of it, like they're also this just a costume for them. Coco: I mean, yeah, it's all performance art or costume, but I when you said Jason Isbel, I always said Isbel, but just probably my bad way to say it Isbel, I made me think about I was like, what movies has he worked on? It's like he and Sturgil Simpson are both in Killers of the Flower Moon, which is very cool. think they're both cast in the film. I think they also contributed to the Ashby: It's all performance art. Mm. That's probably right. Mm. Coco: the soundtrack having country strains to films that are explicitly about like what is the idea of America, in a really direct way and then saying, Yeah, Shibuzi also has like those kinds of aspirations or thoughts too. Ashby: Mm-hmm. Yeah. So the reason I wanted to compare like Shabuzi's Rise and his upcoming album to obviously to Lone Women is I just loved when I watched the video and saw Sierra as the like black protagonist in this dusty pioneer western town. It just immediately took me to Lone Women, which is just such a fun, beautiful short novel that Coco: Yeah. Mm-hmm. Ashby: is like a gothic Western horror story, which is extremely hard to explain and like sell to people, but was one of my, I've been known to do it, buy a book in an airport. And it's been one of my one of my favorite reads. it's not a rewriting of history. It's a retelling. of the actual history, that actually there were more figures and identities present in this myth making of America than traditional Hollywood tropes give credit to. And so reading those types of westerns is fun. So I wanted to know what you thought of it. Coco: Mm-hmm. Yeah, and so The Premise of Lone Women by Victor Lavelle. Am I getting that right? I listened to it on audiobook and I'm kind of picky about my audiobooks. Like I need to like the narrator, really loved the narrator, so definitely recommend the the audiobook experience and and it's written in a way where there is like descriptive text and things, but it is like kind of plot forward, so it's easy to follow. I think sometimes when you're listening to Ashby: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Coco: an audiobook, sometimes that stuff is is hard. But it is about a a black woman who it opens with an action scene of she's kind of fleeing her family's home and she's carrying this very heavy, large trunk, and she's making her way on this journey to Montana to kind of c make a claim, to say, like you could stake a claim, say, I'm gonna take this plot of land as long as I can cultivate it and stay there and survive there for a Ashby: Mm-hmm. Coco: Of years, it will be mine. and so it's really her story where she's carrying this like very heavy trunk and you don't know what is in it, but I like minor spoiler, but not a spoiler at all. There's something like monstrous in the trunk that is like her burden, the curse of her family. And so she's kind of it's this I think it takes place in 1915 primarily, and so not like the old West, like kind of a little bit, yeah, a little bit later than that. Ashby: Mm-hmm. Coco: within this context of like a remote community, and she's having these like tensions of trying to stay isolated because she is afraid that like by getting close to other people they'd be in danger, versus you know, kind of forming community and relationships with other people. And then, of course, the ones that she does ultimately connect with are other women that are, you know, not not married to a man, that kind of are like quote unquote lone women. And I love the like it's it's a horror, but it's not scary. So like if you are like resistant to like reading something that's scary, like it's it's more of a like yeah, like myth or Ashby: It's like a folklore, like it's like a folklore myth mythology or almost like a folklore mystery. Yeah. And it's got a kind of a gothic I I think of like like an Edgar Allan Poe story or something like that, where there's a sort of mystery but a feeling of dread and Coco: Yeah, folklore. Uh-huh. Yeah. And I'm Ashby: the protagonist is just struggling with the weight of it and you're kind of like waiting for it to resolve. I thought it was so good. Coco: Mm-hmm. Yeah, it was it was delightful and quick. Yeah, not not super long novel. I think it would make a great movie. Like I hope they. Well, my fantasy casting is so the main character, Adelaide, yes. So the main character, Adelaide, is continuously described as like a very tall, strong woman because she's also hauling this like trunk thing around with her all the time. Ashby: I would love if it was a movie then we could do fantasy casting. Adelaide? Mm-hmm. Coco: so I was thinking Jessica Williams because she's like quite tall and would probably be perfect for it. Ashby: So love I would love Jessica Williams. I mean I would love Sierra Miller. I would l because I feel like I could see it. Coco: Sure, yes, yes. Ashby: And there's more there are more characters in it. Like, there are queer characters in it that there are Chinese characters, indigenous characters, there's a trans character. And I I just loved reading their stories and that they were Coco: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Ashby: They were all interconnected and there's this setting of the West, but knowing, like this is obviously fiction, but like knowing that these people were always here. They were always here. They get erased in popular conceptions of the of the Wild West as a stage for the lone white masculine hero. But that wasn't the reality. And I just I think when we separate ourselves from the marketing aspect. Coco: Yeah. Ashby: for the music, for our literature, for movies, and we actually contend with like we were saying, the real mixed lived experiences of people's lives, then it opens up a ton of stuff. Now you no longer think of country music as like exclusionary a thing to listen to that's problematic and supernationalist and religious because you're actually contending with the rich history of it. You no longer Cause I I will get turned off if I see something like a Western advertise to me on Netflix because I basically know what the beats are. And there's one saloon woman who's gonna be held at knife point at a certain point and it's gonna stress me out, you know? And so, but if I'm actually like contending with the real history that was obviously full of lots of different people from different backgrounds and not those annoying, boring, white male savior narratives, now it's fun for me. So Coco: Mm-hmm. Ashby: similarly, we always it always comes back to sinners for us. Coco: Well, yeah, and Sinners I think does such a good job. to what you're saying about lone women, like really the same where there there's a portrait of a community that includes all these different people living amongst each other and the ways in which they like help each other materially, and like to survive together. and are also like looking to make a book, like In Cinners especially. but I do think about that, like the famous like music scene in Cinners where you have all these people partying together and you see the like Ashby: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Coco: ghosts spirits, whatever the right word would be, of the ancestors and the future, like kind of emerging from like this like big celebration of of really amazing musical talent. but I also think something in Centers that like it points to is that culture, music is emerging from a real place, of like Ashby: Yeah. Coco: pain and survival and community and joy and like trauma. that's the source of them the music is kind of a little bit about like generational trauma, and that that's why the music is powerful. and I think that that's also what we're tapping into when you listen to music that feels really like it's coming from a really authentic place as opposed to like the marketing music of it all. Ashby: Yeah. Yeah. When it when it's someone making music, you know, that they think is fun and enjoyable versus being like a commercial package and just sort of a voice for a machine, you connect with it differently. You just do. But but yeah, I think you're right. All these people's lived experiences, it's like the music comes as a type of catharsis for that. It's a way to sort of you know, throw that off after a long work day and you're just at the honky tonk and you're not thinking too much. You're just you want to dance. You want to forget that you're stressed. And and that's what I think like Shabuzi just offers up without like a ton of comment. Do you know what I mean? He's just like, nah, I feel you. Everybody's had a long day. Here's a here's a song for the girls to to dance on the table to. And it's like Coco: Mm-hmm. It's yeah. Ashby: Thank you. Thanks for not making it a whole thing. Thanks for not trying to like pander. Thanks for just making like a cool a beat for me to step to and for interpolating Jay Quan, which you know, you know I have a soft spot for. and then and then yeah, yeah, same with like sinners. It's like all these people have their own traumas and tragedies, but they all come together for this one night, like as a community to like to throw it all off and just like, you know. Coco: Ha ha Ashby: dance at the juke joint. And that also has people of all different backgrounds. There's a Chinese family. There's like the more indigenous knowledge of one of the characters. There's the spiritual angle. there's obviously a multiracial character. It that that's why I like love seeing these stories because that was the real history and not and not something else. Coco: And the film is also like demonstrating like how the music is intertwined. Like it's the collision of different cultures that like produces something quote unquote uniquely American, like to some extent. and then we have unfortunately the power of their talent and joy and and musical celebration does lure vampires to them, which takes a toll on the community. Ashby: Yes. I see. Mm-hmm. Well, such an im But we've said before, what an important metaphor, you know, that that the the white characters who have similar struggles but also different advantages find a way to mix their sounds with their sounds, but like one group ends up benefiting more. And so I think the vampire is such a critical, Coco: I know. Metaphor. Ashby: metaphor there, but I also think in lone women, the metaphor of her dragging this heavy burden around as a lone black woman in a harsh pioneer country is also an important metaphor. And then like learning to share that burden essentially, like with her community of all all different types of people and not let other people exploit the fact that she is carrying this extra weight. Coco: Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Ashby: so I definitely everyone read it. It's so surprising. It's not gonna go how you think. It's yeah. And same for sinners. If you haven't seen it, it's on. It's on. You should go watch it. Coco: Yeah, I don't wanna like reveal too much, but on the streaming, yeah. And I can't I like ahead of this episode I went and re-listened to some of the sinner's music and it like made it makes me want to cry. Like I it just has such a power. It's such a funny film. there's so much blood, but it is still just like so there's something really beautiful. Ashby: It makes me emotional, yeah. Quite a quite a bit of blood in lone women also on but Coco: Yes. I and then the movie version it would probably leave more of a mark on me. Ashby: Pro I would love a movie version. I still I'm gonna keep thinking about that. Coco: I don't know if I could handle there's some like animals that die. That would be the hardest thing for me. Ashby: Okay, here's another thing. Victor Laval or Laval, I don't know how to pronounce it. He has also written Coco: Huh? I don't know. I don't know. Lavelle sounds like s southern to me, like the Ashby: Yeah. he has also written a horror adjacent genre book called The Devil in Silver, and they just adapted it for AMC, which I've just watched. It has Dan Stevens from Downton Abbey in it as the main character and I love the AMC horror anthology, The Terror. I enjoyed the first season the most. The second season I didn't get through. And this one we watched all of. And it was weird. I it also dealt with a sort of looming you know, dark presence. I'm not, I'm still not still making up my mind how I feel about it, but I do, now that I've seen the show, I do want to read the book and see how it compares. But I'm I'm interested in this author and how he Coco: Yeah. Ashby: How he gets these crazy how he gets these crazy ideas? Coco: I did love if we're talking about kind of like rural horror centering black characters, like where the horrors intertwined with like the like as a as a metaphor to describe like a an experience in America, I did love the television series Lovecraft Country, which was on HBO. there's it Ashby: Mm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Coco: Kind of the different episodes do take on like different horror tropes. The unfortunate or the asterisk there is that Jonathan Majors is the star who is an incredible performer but is a terrible person. but Journey Smollette is also one of the leads and she does an amazing job. And I'm kind of surprised her career isn't like bigger. She's such a good actress. but that one is really great, like what what takes it takes place in the nineteen fifties, Jim Crow America. So that's Ashby: Mm. Coco: the kind of setting for all of these different like themes. Ashby: Yeah, I just love a cinematic, you know, a cinematic story with like a theme. And so that's why I'm so excited for the Shabuzi album to come out. I hope there's a whole bunch of music videos. one thing a lot of Ashby Heads may know, I love music videos. I love a music video. I wish that this was a more common thing. I wish there was still like an app where I could just watch music videos on my TV all the time. So I'm very excited. Coco: I mean it's YouTube, I don't know what to tell you. Ashby: but I don't want a bunch of ads and stuff. It's like I wanted like I want the old school VH one experience where I just that's all they did is they played it like it was a show. So I'm excited. I I wanna see more, I wanna see more Shabuzi music videos and I sincerely hope that Sierra's in them. Coco: Yeah. I know. Yeah. T R L What Ashby: So I think that's I think that's basically a wrap. It's just I wanted to say that I'm here for Shabuzy and I I wanted to create a sort of additional color and background for people that might feel like they only like shabuzy and are trying to maybe avoid the rest of country music. And I just wanted to add some additional background that actually he is engaging with the real roots of country music and Coco: Yeah. Ashby: what it actually where it actually came from and not with a fake mythologized gatekeeping marketing white version of country music or the wild west. And I want people to feel like comfortable exploring more of it because I think he's a great entry point. Coco: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Love that. Yay. Well thank Ashby: Plus we gotta add in a little book recommendation for folks. Summer reading. Stay reading. And once again, another how many times do you think we can do you think if we mention sinners we should just go ahead and mention materialists while we're here? I don't I can't find one. I can't. Coco: always. Stay reading or listening. I don't see any good materialist pro you know parallels. So I think that's I think we've been marked safe from materialist discourse in this episode. But maybe Ashby, what we can do for the substack is I would love some of your favorite country music videos because you showed me one. There's like what was the what's the one? No, it's a man. It's he's maybe water skiing or something. What is this one? Ashby: Hmm. The Reba McIntyre? It's the Reba Macint you're thinking of Chattahoochee. I don't think I showed you that one, but that's Alan Jackson, Chattahoochee. Coco: Yeah. You said you used the an expression from it and that I think explained the origins. Ashby: Mm. Coco: Not recently. Ashby: but yeah, no, that one has Alan Jackson waterskiing in jeans, which is a very it's a very iconic image from 90s country, which is very much my like heart is the 90s country. But no, the craziest country music video is one that I will include in the sub stack, which is soap, all I here's how I'm gonna describe it: 1990s, late 80s, high. Coco: Yeah, that's Mm, mm-hmm. Yes. Ashby: fashion soft focus soap opera Reba McIntyre husband murder plot. There are hats. There are gonna be some hats. Coco: Love it. Love it. That's great. I can't wait. I can't wait. Ashby: that should wrap it up. Coco: Yay! Thank you for taking on this taking us on this journey. And we'll include all the those podcasts, et cetera, in the notes. Ashby: All right. See you next time. Coco: Yay! All right. See you next time. Ashby: Bye. the only thing is that I feel like Jessica Williams has such a great sort of like like a like yeah, she has like such a like city girl way of like dismissing you that I feel like would be ill used, you know. I don't know that that would come through. Coco: Would she be too funny? I mean the best thing is watching Jessica Williams just like put Harrison Ford in his place. That's like the main appeal of that show. Shrinking. Ashby: We gotta add a clip. Yeah.