ÇWhen Mickey Guyton was a little girl growing up in eastern Texas, she filled her white canopy bed with a group of stuffed animals posing as passionate fans and dreamed of the day she could attend Grammy as indicated. “I thought I would be in the audience wearing a big, glamorous Whitney Houston dress,” says Guyton, calling from her Los Angeles home about a month ago giving birth to her son, and trying to keep her tabby, Halle Barry , still. The Grammy, like most things in the Covid era, will be different this year. “I didn’t think I would be in a pandemic, pregnant, amid social unrest. It was definitely very different in my mind, you know? “
Guyton is the first black female solo artist to be nominated in the Grammy country category for his single Black Like Me; the only previous black women to be nominated for country music were the Pointer Sisters in 1976. She says she never imagined making history with a song that details the black experience in an exclusive genre, or that she would try to remain silent and obedient to be in forefront of a movement to open the country to new voices. But now, she says, “the boat has rocked.” As Guyton sings on his 2015 release, Better Than You Left Me, a track that should have been a success if American country radio were not as committed to moderately talented white men as his bread and butter, “it’s funny what a little time, baby ”.
Coming from Arlington, the same Texan city as country superstar Maren Morris, and growing up inspired by LeAnn Rimes, Dolly Parton and the (formerly Dixie) Chicks, Guyton has a voice that can match Carrie Underwood in reach and power, but that boils in its own unique and warm accent. She writes intimate ballads, as well as the sweet things that fans of the genre love to hear exploding while having a beer at a festival. But while country music struggles to correct the shadowy female representation on the radio, Guyton was left out of a battle that seemed to include only white women. “I felt like I was forgotten,” she says.
She moved to the country music capital, Nashville, but her career stalled while she continued writing songs like Black Like Me and What Are You Gonna Tell Her ?, an impressive mediation about the disappointments and broken promises of femininity. Both appear in his EP Bridges, alongside the poppy and the delicious Rosé.
Guyton created Black Like Me a few years ago, with the murder of Botham Jean, an innocent black man shot in his home, weighing on his heart and mind. “I circulated around certain people who trusted the industry I knew and who had the power to help,” she says. “And the answer was, ‘Wow, this is really powerful. But I need to sit with this for a minute. ‘”
His moment finally came in the midst of the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests. As all the great country lyrics do, his central refrain – “If you think we live in the land of freedom / You should try to be black like me” – continued to universal and granular level: for a country in the midst of a racial calculation, and for a musical genre born from black traditions that has long denied its history of origin. Suddenly, Guyton found himself in a new, sometimes reluctant, position as an activist.
“[Black Like Me] it’s much bigger than my own personal experiences, ”says Guyton. “And realizing that I have to open this little window and blow it up not only for black women, but also for the gay community. For there to be a change in country music, there must be a wave of other types of artists who are not only white and men. “
This will finally include herself as well: later this year she will be releasing her debut album, 10 years in production, which will showcase the full breadth of her talent, and possibly even a “damn” trap-country tune. Guyton also prioritized the promotion of other black women of the gender, but she wondered if, in the process, he was “taking them to the lions’ den”. Even with a Grammy nomination, it was still not being played on country radio. And after the US Capitol insurrection, and the megastar Morgan Wallen being filmed saying racial slander, she cried to her husband, wondering if she was doing the right thing.
“I’ve been putting my neck on the line, saying that you can sing country music and be accepted,” she says. “There was a part of me that was also like this: but can you? I encouraged so many amazing, talented and beautiful people. But I want to protect the people I’m leading in this as well. “
That means talking as much as you can, even when it’s uncomfortable. The messages for her on Twitter can be filled with hate and racism, showing how country music can be a beautiful and deeply destroyed place. “This is making some people very angry,” she says. “But we are waking up.”