On Monday’s Fox News Outnumbered, the right-wing panel turned a story about copyrights in country music into a “war on woke.” Because of course they did.
A Washington Post op-ed covered the complicated emotions in Nashville over Tracy Chapman’s “Fast Car.”
Country music artist Luke Combs covered that song to phenomenal success. The song went to number one on the Billboard Country airplay chart.
The WaPo op-ed simply noted that the re-make…
…prompted a wave of complicated feelings among some listeners and in the Nashville music community. Although many are thrilled to see “Fast Car” back in the spotlight and a new generation discovering Chapman’s work, it’s clouded by the fact that, as a Black queer woman, Chapman, 59, would have almost zero chance of that achievement herself in country music.
Sounds like some people in the country music industry want more diversity and inclusion in their business. Wouldn’t that be nice?
But Outnumbered had to make this into white grievance reverse discrimination culture war anti-woke nonsense.
It’s no surprise that Black and queer musicians have not been represented in Nashville. But this discussion, and that’s all it was, is way too unconfortable for Kayleigh McEnany and crew.
The former Trump mouthpiece whined that, hey, Chapman won all these Grammys.
“She received accolades, too,” McEnany said.
(That wasn’t the point of the article.)
“I didn’t know Tracy Chapman, initially, was male or female or black or white… ‘Fast Car’ is about getting out; it’s about your dreams. ‘Talkin’ ‘Bout a Revolution,’ it’s about getting out of poverty. Who can’t identify with that?” Cheryl Casone said.
“So, I mean, all of these things are, this has nothing to do with the topic that the Washington Post decided to write about,” she continued.
(Wrong, wrong , wrong. Bringing up a diversity issue was relevant then and today.)
“Thank you very much for making something completely controversial that wasn’t, and frankly, nobody was talking about LGBTQ rights and race and Tracy Chapman until this.”
(Not in your Fox News bubble.)
“But it is the Washington Post,” McEnany replied. “I mean, they are, I mean, they’re crazy.”
(Huh? You worked for a treasonous narcissist. That’s crazy.)
Up came Jason Chaffetz to bat from the on-deck circle.
“Well, whoever wrote this article at the Washington Post needs to re-examine their life,” Chaffetz opined. They need to go look in the mirror and say, why did I do this? Because it is exactly the opposite of what they said.”
To Chaffetz, as long as Chapman receives her fees, there is no problem here.
Here is Luke Combs taking a song that he has a personal affinity for; he knows the background of this person, he decides to cover it, he decides to put it out there and to push it, play it at concerts, and it’s wildly popular, and it’s popular for him personally.
And guess what?
Tracy Chapman, when they play that on the radio, Tracy Chapman wrote the song.
She makes money.
Luke Combs doesn’t make any money on that.
That’s the way royalties work.
So she gets all the money, he doesn’t, from actually playing on the radio.
And every time it’s streamed on Spotify or Apple Music, guess what?
They both make money.
That’s a good thing.
And so for the Washington Post to, again, put out clickbait and say, oh, this is a racial thing.
It’s exactly the opposite.
It shows we’re actually coming together, and race wasn’t part of the issue.
(Nobody is attacking Luke Combs. It’s a critique of how the Country Music establishment operates, fool.)
Not to be left in the cold, Harris Faulkner joined the dance.
“There you go,” Faulkner said. Because we are not allowed to go forward without somebody judging or trying to cancel us on the race format, because it takes away the power of the cancel culture, of the woke folk, as I say.”
Who is being canceled? No one!
