Considerations on separating the art from the artist in 2025. No, I’m not going to do that, and I’m quite comfortable with that choice.
A few weeks back, longtime reader Chris S posted the following question, edited lightly here:
I’m curious how you feel or reconcile when an artist whose work you typically enjoy traffics in, shall we say, “unpleasant” politics or displays views that are diametrically opposed to what you believe. I ask because I came across a song several months back called “Hey Mr. President” by Deborah Allen (she of “Baby I Lied” fame and singer behind one of my favorite country albums of the nineties, Delta Dreamland).
As you might surmise from the title, it’s a song extolling the virtues of and praising the “hard work” done by… President Trump. I’m now torn because I was a fan of this artist’s music but the endorsement… has left me at something of a crossroads with the artist and her music, and it makes me question how to separate one from the other.
I’ve taken some time to ponder a full response to this because I think it’s an important question both in the context of the current political climate and as a philosophical matter at a time when major publications are laying off critics of all stripes. There’s a disturbing cultural trend– friend of the blog Ann Powers recently tied it to the concept of gamification in a way that I find particularly incisive– that looks at media not as having any narrative or historical value as art but as a commodity to drive engagement. I’m on record as a fan of her pop career, but I do think Taylor Swift has played a massive role in this, with the way each of her albums has been driven by the same exhausting and thought-terminating exegesis of who every line in every song is really about and the same tracking down of Easter eggs like Pokémon Go.
The idea that authorial intent and autobiography are the sole driver of meaning is one I’ve always rejected, but it’s taken root in a really ugly way for years now. Remember the comment thread about Miranda Lambert’s deeply awful single, “Over You,” and how it immediately devolved into a bunch of ad hominem attacks impugning the character of anyone who dared to dislike it? That mentality was the chest-burster that has since grown into a hulking perfect organism of a xenomorph that is unclouded by conscience, remorse, or delusions of morality.
People generally don’t want to read any deeper analysis or context for a work of popular art. People, particularly internet Stanbases, want nothing more than approval or validation of their own tastes and beliefs: Criticism replaced by confirmation bias.
When divisive politics enter the discussion? The results are generally ugly, if not overtly threatening. The number of critics who have received literal threats against their immediate physical safety for daring to point out how the music of some country A-listers is MAGA-coded or who have attempted to contextualize COWBOY CARTER in ways that are informed by actual knowledge of Beyoncé’s specific skill set should be zero, but it numbers more than a dozen.
My view is that it is impossible to act as though any form of popular music– of anything, really, that is available to be bought or sold under Western capitalism– is truly apolitical. If a corporation spends millions of dollars on market research and product development to create something that will be marketed and sold to the general public? That is inherently political, and to pretend otherwise is to deliberately, willfully misunderstand modern civilization on a fundamental level.
So when a record label on Music Row invests its considerable capital into the hired-gun songwriters, session musicians, and currently on-trend “artists” to create a new product to push into the market? That’s political, whether the finished song is Tyler Childers’ singing about literally eating the rich or is Brian Kelley’s giving a stump speech or is something like Ella Langley’s weather report of a single that is ostensibly “apolitical.” And it’s essential to interrogate and contextualize the hows and whys of the decisions made in bringing whatever that single or album or video might be to market.
But for any particular listener and any particular critic, there are decisions to be made about what to engage with and to what extent. One of the hills I’ll die on is that there is simply more exceptional music available than any of us can ever hope to experience in a lifetime. On any given week, I add 15 – 20 new full-length albums to my queue of releases to consider for review, to say nothing of EPs and standalone singles or music from other genres that I enjoy but don’t include for review here. There’s simply no way to listen to all of it, let alone to go back and listen to “new to me” music from past eras that I haven’t had the good fortune to hear just yet.
It’s a matter of having a framework, then, for what to engage with and what to set aside. And to Chris’ question: An artist’s politics can figure into that framework, since no artist, no matter how “big” they might be, is ever entitled to any one listener’s or critic’s time or engagement.
To wit: I’ve reviewed almost 300 albums thus far in 2025. Morgan Wallen’s I’m the Problem is not one of them. Why not? Because there is nothing that I can point out to one of Wallen’s many, many apologists that would be persuasive about how he’s untalented– a stance I’m on record of having long before his N-word tape– or how he continues to exploit a perception of being unfairly criticized to drive his persona. Wallen’s grievance-based brand identity is fundamentally uninteresting to me, and his popularity, driven at least in part by those self-perpetuated grievances, is its own reward. Why spend a month getting screamed at by strangers on the internet for writing about that?
When it comes to artists who have perpetuated very real harm? I’m not going to give them my attention. As we’ve discussed on here several times recently, Jerry Lee Lewis is a literal child rapist, no matter the specific laws that were on the books at the time. I threw away my Ryan Adams tour tee-shirt years ago and haven’t purchased or streamed any new music he’s released, nor will I give his new music the attention of a review. But I’ll still listen to “Come Pick Me Up” and “New York, New York” when they come up on my best-of-the-aughts playlists because I’d already spent my money on that music prior to all of the stories about Adams becoming common lore. But they certainly don’t hit the same as they used to.
Others may have different calculus around such things, and that’s their prerogative.
As for the current political climate, I attempt to take a similar stance. If an artist makes an overt endorsement of political stances that are rooted in intentional harm, particularly against marginalized or vulnerable populations, I’m out. I have dear friends and family members who live in a state of constant terror these days; their lives, liberties, and pursuits of happiness matter more to me than some notion that “separating the art from the artist” is a greater moral imperative than standing beside and standing up for humans I care about.
This question came up in the context of a lyric on the new Scotty McCreery EP. McCreery has always scanned as conservative in ways that many country artists often do. That he’s chosen to sing about, “Looking out on the Gulf of America,” is a dogwhistle of an endorsement to the current administration.
But it’s also one of the stupidest elements of the current administration and one that trades in negligible harm to any real live humans. A reference to the “Gulf of America” is, frankly, not something I’m going to get worked up over, and it won’t necessarily keep me from checking out future releases from McCreery. It’s obvious rage-bait and should be acknowledged as such and then ignored.
Chris’ example of Deborah Allen is an interesting one: I’d shared with Kevin on the same day of Chris’ post a link to Allen’s recent release of her demo version of “Hurt Me Bad in a Real Good Way,” which went on to be one of Patty Loveless’ best singles. But I’d missed Allen’s paean to Trump entirely, and it was disappointing to hear such a terribly-written piece of agitprop from an artist of Allen’s caliber. As another example, Shawna Thompson’s Leon On Neon was one of my favorite albums of 2024, and she followed up its release just a few weeks later with a Thompson Square collaborative single titled, “Make America Great Again.”
In cases like Allen’s or Thompson’s, when I’ve been a fan of an artist’s work and then they’ve made overt endorsements of political agendas that I cannot abide, I’ll still listen to the music they made prior to those endorsements. But my enjoyment isn’t what it was before. It’s tempered by a feeling of “We were all rooting for you!” disappointment rooted in the current political climate’s denial of the basic humanity of people who are different from them.
It’s not at all the same as, say, Jelly Roll or Jason Aldean or RaeLynn or Oliver Anthony, who never really released much music I liked in the first place. And there are center-left and left-leaning country artists whose music I don’t particularly care for: The McGraw-Hill household, for instance, or Little Big Town’s last run of albums. I’m not going to give a pass to an artist simply because I like their politics more than I like their music, and I’m also not going to seek them out to prove a point to someone who might build a straw-man argument. I am, at best, a marginal fan of Bruce Springsteen and have stated many, many times that I have little use for the last two decades’ worth of Mary Chapin Carpenter’s work.
Perhaps the most salient recent example would be the contrast between Larry Fleet’s new EP, on which he sings of things that are important to him without insisting that those things are the only correct or acceptable ways to live, and Chris Janson’s latest album, on which he sings, “The left ain’t right, and the right ain’t wrong” and doubles-down on a sense of anger at people he sees as falling on the wrong side of a binary that ignores the actual complexities of the human experience.
I don’t need to hold space for Janson’s or, say, John Rich’s brand of identity politics in the name of some nebulous “marketplace of ideas” construct because their approach to expressing their views is in no way interesting or instructive about what they believe. My own lived experiences, past and present, have made it abundantly clear what those beliefs are. Fleet’s songs, in contrast, scan as a more open conversation about what he values, and I’m always happy to have those conversations. I think our own comment threads here actually make that pretty clear.
It isn’t a matter of demanding ideological purity; in part, it’s about allocating my own resources of time and attention, knowing that no one has to separate the art from the artist when there’s already so much art available to us. Moreover, it’s about recognizing the value in art that can reflect differences in values while still being rooted in a fundamental sense of empathy– what we’ve said here for years is the foundation for the best country music.
This is such a great piece! I agree with you on pretty much every point/conclusion that you’ve made here.
Thanks, Leeann! I’m never sure how something like this will land, or if it’s even a good idea to publish at all in the current state of things!
I’ve gone back and forth over the years on this. My general rule of thumb is that I won’t let political differences get in the way of the music unless they’re a dick about it. Lee Greenwood has come to my county fair twice in my adult life and I never had any hesitation about going to his concerts. I know he’s not on the same side as I am politically but I’ve never heard him flaunt it in a judgmental or condescending way. So he’s an easy case….
Just as easy of a case is someone whose views and public proclamations are as odious as Hank Williams, Jr., John Rich, or Aaron Lewis. I would never consider setting foot at one of their concerts or buying any of their music.
But there’s plenty of cases in the middle. I like much of Travis Tritt’s songbook but has shown propensity of being a jerk about his politics over the years. I’m not a Jason Aldean fan and wouldn’t likely go to one of his concerts, but he’s dancing on the edge for me nowadays too. The toughest call I faced on this front was Charlie Daniels, who performed at my county fair in 2016. I was fully prepared for him to preach something untenable from the stage as I know he’s done that in the past. Luckily, he was a gentleman that night and didn’t talk about politics.
The most depressing examples are when I go to concerts and get ambushed by toxic politics when the artist sings a “special song they recently wrote”. Collin Raye did this with his noxious and moronic “World History 101” at a 2004 concert I attended at the Minnesota State Fair. Neal McCoy also did it once during the Bush years. With my enjoyment of the concert having fallen off a cliff when they detonate this kind of stink bomb, I typically get up and leave.
So I guess there’s no entirely consistent formula for how I respond to this sort of thing. It’s a situational basis. Thankfully, no artist that I’ve really liked has poisoned the well with their political beliefs over the years.
I’m also glad I’m not the only one who thinks “Over You” is a really lame song.
I didn’t care for GBTUSA when it came out, but I’ve come to respect if over time. Unlike a lot of so-calle partiotic songs of late, it’s positive throughout and does not sneer at or attack the singer’s political foes. I would bet that that song will get Lee Greenwood into the H-o-F.
That one is an interesting case, in the sense that I agree that the actual text of the song is framed positively– the idea of patriotism as a shared virtue, which is not an idea that I think is controversial. But Greenwood’s own licensing of the song for purposes of selling literal Bibles endorsed by Donald Trump– I’m not linking the website for it, but those are still available for purchase and marketed as, “The only Bible endorsed by Lee Greenwood and President Trump”– is an especially grotesque grift that’s contrary to the actual red-letter teachings.
That “unless they’re a dick about it” is really the crux of my argument with Chris Janson’s album: The belligerence of his political stances while also leaning into his perceived and largely invented grievances, and his insistence that people who have different values are indisputably *wrong*.
These two things in this piece really stood out for me:
“People, particularly internet Stanbases, want nothing more than approval or validation of their own tastes and beliefs: Criticism replaced by confirmation bias.”
“But I’ll still listen to “Come Pick Me Up” and “New York, New York” when they come up on my best-of-the-aughts playlists because I’d already spent my money on that music prior to all of the stories about Adams becoming common lore.”
I do think ‘stans’ are their own category, and it’s hard to have any true discourse there. I also think artists that are an ingrained part of our lives/nostalgia are harder to re-evaluate, especially when we’ve already spent money on them.
But, yes, music is inherently political for many reasons as you’ve already written about here. But also, R Kelly was literally singing and writing about his crimes, so how can anyone actually separate the art from the artist there?
But it’s also funny because MAGA will rail against cancel culture and say to separate the art from the artist, but they will also cancel Bud Light and Maren Morris so…
At the end of the day it’s about what we as individuals can live with. What I try to think about even more is how helping give success to someone who has committed known crimes sends a message to victims of similar crimes (i.e. a person supporting an R Kelly or Chris Brown sends a clear message to the women in your life, just as acting like Morgan Wallen’s actions and non-accountability sends a message to the nonwhites in your life).
Agreed, of course, on the difficulty of making these kinds of decisions when it comes to an artist we’re already significantly invested in. Kevin and I are working on something related specifically to Miranda Lambert and Carrie Underwood when it comes to this, which is why I purposefully didn’t mention them as examples in this piece. But I will say that, as Lambert has been more overt in some of her allegiances and more nakedly performative in her LGBTQ+ allyship, I’ve not maintained the same fervor for her that I once had. Doesn’t hurt that she hasn’t released a truly great solo album in almost a decade.
No disagreement, obviously, related to R Kelly or Chris Brown. I’ve commented for years about how disgusting it was that long-time Grammy broadcast producer Ken Ehrlich literally said that *his show* was the real victim of Brown’s vicious assault of Rihanna. And I can’t think of a more willfully obtuse collaboration than Lady Gaga’s choice to release a duet with R Kelly called “Do What You Want” as though his history of abuses wasn’t widely known for years.
First off Jonathan….wow. Just wow. What a wonderfully articulate, thought out piece. I can’t say that I disagree with a word of it. And I’m glad I asked the question!
Funny you should mention Underwood and Lambert. I’ll be the first to admit, it’s a very difficult task for me to separate an artist’s output–no matter how much I may love, appreciate or even just respect it–from the artist themselves as well as their political leanings and/or personal beliefs system. Or hell, even just hustling to make a buck and inadvertently–or maybe just ignorantly–offending whatever fan base you make have left; happened a few years back with pop singer Taylor Dayne when she performed at a Trump New Year’s event (as a gay man, it broke my heart a little and I suspect many other gay men–arguably ninety percent of what little fan base she has left–wrote her off for good
with that little appearance). Lambert has a gay brother but, like you, her occasional association with certain artists (like Wallen) definitely makes her allyship at least appear as a bit performative. And I can barely put into words how disappointed I was when Underwood performed at the most recent inauguration; I feel like, at a certain juncture in an adult’s life, said adult should understand the concept of “guilty by association”. No, she hasn’t committed a crime, but I also wouldn’t think one would agree to perform at an event for someone they didn’t agree with politically, at least on some basic level. And yet there she was, along side Snoop Dogg, Nelly and Gavin DeGraw (another one that surprised me). I’m not a rap aficionado so the presence of the former two didn’t particularly bother me per se; I saw DeGraw open for Shania about a decade ago and, while he actually put on a better performance than she did, he would be another that I wouldn’t lose sleep over. But Underwood was a huge disappointment; I followed her since her Idol days, and while I don’t hold her in the same space as Kelly Clarkson, I have enjoyed a decent amount of the stuff she’s put out, maybe moreso from Blown Away on than those first three records (even saw her live once; good show). But, like with Deborah Allen, I’m now torn a little. I do like your theory of enjoying music certain artists released prior to the political left turns some of these artists take but, like you, it hits a little different knowing what I now know.
Thanks again for listening.
I try to separate my appreciation of art from my opinion of the artist – I listen to a lot of music from artists whose opinions I abhor, but whose musical artistry cannot be denied. Moreover, just when you think you have someone pegged, you discover something new about them that forces you to reevaluate them.
Take David Allan Coe for instance. I knew that he had served time in prison and was one very strange dude but the only music of his I had ever heard was that released on Columbia Records. About fifteen years ago Tim Donovan (road keyboard player for six years with Molly Hatchet) and I went to a bar to see Coe perform – included in his repertoire were two racist and one homophobic song that caused Tim and I to leave at the earliest convenient time. I don’t think I have listened to any of Coe’s music since then.
I dropped Pinkard & Bowden from my play list since I saw them in person and they performed the homophobic “Fudge Packers in the Sky” (to the tune of “Ghost Riders in the Sky”).
Then there is Kris Kristofferson. I discovered recently Kris Kristofferson was life-long friends with Jerry Lee Lewis and wrote “Once More With Feeling” specifically for JLL. I wonder if knowing this will cause Kevin to forevermore purge Kristofferson from his listening selections.
Anyway, it is impossible to know in many cases the political, religious, moral or ethical beliefs of the writers and/or performers of the songs you hear. My first criterion is always “do I like what I am hearing” – if I don’t like it, then no other considerations matter. I don’t like the sound of Morgan Wallen’s music so I don’t listen to it – period.
I am sure that I have unknowingly helped put money in the pockets of people whose very essence I would find distasteful. I watched Charlie Chaplin films as a teen, not knowing about his controversial personal life.
I do allow for forgiveness and the possibility that people can and do change – JLL’s transgressions occurred many years ago. Ryan Adams’ appear to be recent and ongoing (I really don’t like his music anyway so I would not waste my time on it).
I love Krstofferson, even if I didn’t agree with his politics, and he was always a fan and an admirer of all the great artists he encountered. He name-checked a bunch of them in “If You Don’t Like Hank Williams,” and, in later years, he would often do shout-outs to the whole litany of departed artists whom he met in Nashville or who recorded his songs, from Roger Miller to Jerry Lee to Joplin to Sammi Smith to Ray Price to Shel and Cash and Waylon.
I was at the Highwaymen concert at Nassau Coliseum in 1990 that’s been released on video and is up on Youtube. They sang a bunch of group songs, but all the guys also did some of their own material. I still remember, when Kris came out and did a couple of cuts from his then current “Third World Warrior” CD, a guy who would be stereotypical MAGA today in his appearance and attire ran down the aisle to get as close to the front as he could and, cupping his hands into a makeshift megaphone around his mouth, yelled at the stage, at the top of his lungs: “Fk You, Commie!,” before turning around and heading back to his seat.
That capacity for change is important, of course. And certainly if and when someone demonstrates a real change or repentance for the harms they’ve done, that’s something that can and should be recognized. There are a lot of Wallen apologists, for instance, who make utterly unconvincing arguments that he’s made amends for his use of a racial slur. His ongoing behavior, in my view, shows no such fundamental change. And oh, well: I still think his music is terrible, so that’s no real loss.
And humans are difficult to pigeon-hole. I have my own beliefs on some issues that are not specifically on a stereotypical “party line.” As I said, this isn’t a matter of demanding ideological purity so much as it is having a consistent framework for making these kinds of choices.
The dig at Kevin over JLL is noted and unnecessary.
I’m fine with being attacked for holding JLL in contempt.
I hope Paul continues to draw as clear a distinction between him and me as possible on that.
It’s such a morally repugnant hill to die on that the dig feels like a compliment.
Now if you will excuse me, I’m off to purge my collection of Kris Kristofferson music that I didn’t know about and have never written about in 21 years of Country Universe!
I hate to think that there is a clear distinction between my stance on racial bigotry and homophobia. If there is, then I am really shocked and disappointed in you.
As for purging your collection of Kristofferson, rotsa ruck in doing that or you will have a very small collection of 60s/70s music given the large number of artists who have recorded Kristofferson songs. And yes, you have written about Kristofferson’s songs in various articles.
P.S. – you should be careful about libeling people. A friend of mine is an attorney who is a closet country fan – he reads various country music blogs but never comments on them. He suggested that I file suit but I am not going to (1) because I have thick skin, and (2) this isn’t the New York Times so the damage you can do to my reputation is very limited
I don’t know what you’re even responding to here, Paul. To my recollection, you’ve never posted anything racist or homophobic in the comment sections here, so no one’s even talking about that.
But you’ve certainly been one of the commenters– not the only one– who’ve chimed in repeatedly in discussions of Jerry Lee Lewis, who was an instructive example for why I wrote this piece in the first place. Because his history of literal child rape, regardless of what laws were on the books in Mississippi at the time, is not something I’m willing to overlook just because he can bang the hell out of a piano. He was a predator who lived an incredibly long life in which he could’ve demonstrated the capacity for change that you spoke of in your own first reply here, and he took nary a one of those opportunities to express any shame or regret about what he did.
Even if there had not been prior discussion around this website of JLL’s indefensible actions, he’d still have been the most obvious country-specific example I could’ve come up with to illustrate the entire thesis here; Jason responded upthread with R Kelly, who’d be perhaps the most salient non-country example in recent memory. I do not need to spend my time listening to the music created by someone who raped a child, and, frankly, I don’t think that’s a difficult stance in the larger context of people’s differing political views.
So what even is your expectation here? Do you want us to delete the comments you left in defense of and apologia for Jerry Lee Lewis? An acknowledgement that this blog is not, in fact, of comparable impact to the NYT?
Literally no one is slandering you, and you were the one who threw in the attempted Gotcha! comment about Kevin in the first place. Which, as I already said, was unnecessary and added nothing of value to what’s otherwise been a thoughtful comment thread, including to your own contributions.
Let me just reiterate what Jonathan said here, Paul.
If you’re truly worried about your reputation, we will happily delete all of your comments on this topic.
Because you’ve been slandering yourself.
Nobody asked you to defend the indefensible the first time around, let alone resurrect the topic again while attacking me by name on my own damn site.
I’m embarrassed for you. I know you’re better than this.
While I can’t say that I’ve had the same direct experiences that others here have had of artists they’ve seen and heard in concert “getting political”, I do have to chuckle now at the over-the-top and allegedly violent reaction given to Linda Ronstadt when she sang at the Aladdin Hotel in Las Vegas in July 2004 and dedicated the Eagles’ “Desperado” to Fahrenheit 9/11 filmmaker and agent provocateur Michael Moore, this of course at the height of the Iraq war, when the Far Right was trying to silence all anti-war dissent. It was alleged that people threw drinks and stormed out in a hissy-fit, and that Linda was “fired” after that incident. I don’t know about the throwing of drinks (it’d be well within the character of booze-addled patrons), but Linda wasn’t “fired”; she merely finished her show and left.
And besides, Linda’s politics, starting with her appearance at the anti-Vietnam War rally on the Capitol Mall in May 1971, and continuing up to as recently as last year, when she trolled Trump for his holding his xenophobic rally in her hometown of Tucson, and trolled J.D. Vance for his “childless cat lady” remarks, are legion for anyone that bothered to read about her or see the 2019 documentary film about her, The Sound Of My Voice. Granted, what Linda did in Vegas was unexpected–but that’s true of any musical artist, whether they are a hack like Chris Janson, or a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame member like Linda. It is what it is.
Yes, Linda’s refusal to be silenced, even still, is a wonder to behold!
…it is very slippery ground trying to separate the art from the artist. to paraphrase it with the great joan osborne: artists all to often are just slobs like all of us – and the separators most likely too. on top of that, these rather fruitless attempts most often just end in a position of touching extremes. those, who dogmatically resolve to that in the most consequent way possible all too often only end up back to back with the other extremists, who aim at unlimited freedom (in whatever until they get to taste their own medicine, of course).
in my humble experience (the modesty is only thrown in for good measure) the further one strays from the middle/common ground of the standard deviation curve toward the fringes, the more likely one tends to slip or even crash. every which way, one rarely looks smart and elegant when getting more and more off balance. actually, some prove of my thesis may be the u.s.a. 2025 and probably beyond.
now, i’ll go back to ponder what to do with myself and the bellamy brothers after humming “you ain’t just whistlin’ dixie” already for a fews days since overhearing it on the radio the other day. the lord loving his sinful flock of sheep all the same is only consolation as far as i probably won’t find myself in that orange and royal lot of sinners like a certain mr. t. from d.c.
When I think back on my one ill-spent semester of law school, I recall my Con Law professor making a statement about how slippery slope arguments are just a feckless, cowardly way for justices to avoid reckoning with the difficult reality in front of them in favor of an abstract hypothetical that may or may not ever actually land on their docket.
I found that notion persuasive then, and it has served me well in the years since, too. There are people I care about who are experiencing very real harm and trauma. I’m not going to disregard their lived sense of terror today because there might be other forms of terror still to come.
And I don’t think the argument I made is really one of extremism– I’m familiar with the Overton Window– because I don’t think “First, do no harm,” is an extreme position to take, either politically or morally. And that’s where I think I made it clear I’ve personally set my own bar for this kind of thing.
I do imagine that this argument lands far differently outside of the current US environment, so I appreciate that perspective, Tom!
Wanted to highlight here that friend-of-the-blog Rachel Cholst cited and discussed this piece in a new essay for No Depression, and it’s very much an essential read: https://nodepression.org/queer-country-music-is-political/
One of Rachel’s essential points– and it’s something I fully agree with– is that, yes, what a music conglomerate chooses to invest its capital into is always political, and it is no less political what they choose *not* to invest in or promote. Rachel’s essay focuses on LGBTQ+ artists– Chris Housman, whose music is 100% radio-ready mainstream country, is the primary example– but it also cuts across other under-represented demographics on the rosters of Music Row’s labels. The *absence* is also inherently political, and it’s why we’ll keep beating the drum about gatekeeping even when that gets under the skin of the self-appointed gatekeepers.