Jonet’ Washington
Staff Writer
Controversy sparked after famous pop and R&B artist Beyoncé made a guest appearance on the Country Music Association Awards on Nov. 2.
The singer joined artists Emily Robison and Natalie Maines of the Dixie Chicks to perform their song “Daddy Lessons” and many country music fans were not pleased with Beyoncé’s appearance and took to social media to voice their rage.
Many of the comments on the social media pages included heavy racial slurs and negative comments about the way she looked. Tweets that she had no business performing at the CMA Awards and negative comments about her supporting the Black Lives Matter Movement, also surfaced.
Country music fans seem to be most upset about the artist being black in a predominantly white field of music. However, according to writer for Ebony, George Johnson, it has not always been that way.
Johnson stated in the article that the banjo, similar to the Banjar played in Africa and was the foundation of early country music, was invented by enslaved Southern blacks in the 1960’s. The fiddle was an instrument also played by our enslaved ancestors after their white oppressor introduced it to them.
Johnson also stated that many African-Americans shy away from country music because they want to forget their time of enslavement and anything associated with it.
Students at Jackson State University also gave their opinions on how they felt about Beyoncé performing at the CMA Awards and the racial backlash behind it.
Kalaisha Hughes, a senior biology/pre-pharmacy major from Memphis, Tenn. said that she doesn’t think there was a problem with Beyoncé performing at the awards.
“She should be able to perform wherever she wants, it’s a free country and she’s Queen Bey!” said Hughes
Ryun Moore, a sophomore computer science major from Jackson, Miss. feels as though that might not have been the place she should have been performing.
“I just don’t understand why she would perform at the CMA’s anyway, I think she should knew what type of reaction she would get by performing there,” said Moore.
Besides the negative comments from fans of the CMA awards, rumors lingered about the actual Country Music Association deleting any evidence of the singers association with the award show.
There were also reports of the CMA’s erasing all footage of Beyoncé’s performance from their official Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook accounts because of the racist backlash.
According to Mic, the CMA stated that the only mention of the performance that was removed was from an unapproved promotional clip posted on ABC.com and the CMA’s Facebook page.
The three artists were also not displayed on the CMA Awards official performers list.
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