When Strahan asked Wallen if country music had a race problem, all Wallen could do was shrug: “It would seem that way, yeah. Before the January incident, Wallen generally avoided presenting his politics in overt ways, unlike some of his genre peers. Listeners leaned in to Wallen’s music as a kind of protest against how he was treated by the country music industry. (Wallen said he donated $500,000 to Black charities, the approximate amount he netted from his sales spike; how much money has reached those organizations has been challenged.) Wallen, the biggest star in country music, was primed to be the kind of breakout figure that extends the reach of the genre into the pop mainstream, akin to Shania Twain or Garth Brooks.

Source: New York Times January 20, 2022 17:34 UTC