Tackling the "Accidental Racist"

Alright. I'm going to be completely frank when I say this: I enjoy country music. I do. It's a recent thing that happened when I moved to the Panhandle. I'd also like to add that this song is a very good representation of everything this area represents to me - don't let our sandy white beaches fool you! While spring break and summer vacation bring my dearly beloved northerners to this area, the vast majority of the people who live here are alllllll about southern pride.

If you haven't heard the song, you can listen to it here.

Now I can tell you that if Brad Paisley had done this song by himself...it would be a hit. IT WOULD. Country music has a reputation of saying whatever it wants just as brashly as rap or R&B, but they do it in a way that makes their listeners smile. While Miguel might sing "How Many Drinks" in his song, Joe Nichols will put it - jokingly of course - as "Tequila Makes Her Clothes Fall Off," you see what I mean? It's all the same, they're just better at making it sound nice and not predatory.

The basic thing to remember with country music is that these musicians get away with a lot. I mean...have you heard Jason Aldean rap? It's painful...but once he starts to sing, I can forgive his completely idiotic decision to even attempt to rap.

So...about this song.

This is not the first song to tackle "southern pride" realistically, if Paisley had set out to just make the contemporary southern white man's anthem, this would be it. You would hear guys in cowboy boots and ten gallon hats telling their black friends that "Paisley gets them," more likely than not. How do I know that? Because while everyone that I'm friends with in the black community is up in arms, I've heard quite a few people that are actually happy to hear it right in Bay County.

Paisley takes an incredibly huge topic and boils it down into a song that, without LL Cool J, would probably just be background music...but then he added LL Cool J to the mix...and that is where the problem started.

Whether it's LL's terrible rapping or his off the cuff "adlibs" and rap lyrics, the song, already destined to make plenty of people cringe, goes on a downward spiral and doesn't stop.

I want you to get paid but be a slave I never could
Feel like a new fangled Django, dodging invisible white hoods 

RIP Robert E. Lee but I've gotta thank Abraham Lincoln for freeing me, know what I mean 

If you don't judge my do-rag, I won't judge your red flag.
If you don't judge my gold chains, I'll forget the iron chains.

There aren't words that I could use to describe just how...I literally, I can't come up with words to describe how I feel about LL Cool J's participation in this. It's a situation where, I'm at the intersection of complete-and-utter-shock and absolute confusion.

WHO TOLD YOU THIS WAS A GOOD MOVE LL?
WHO LIED TO YOU AND HATES YOU SO MUCH?

Whether its just the fact that he's a terrible rapper or the way he took something so big and turned it into...I don't even know what to call it. All I can say is the minute I heard him start talking, I wanted it to end. It being, the song, his career, his participation in music as a whole, his acting career too...I don't understand. To take something this big and trivialize it, make it into a punchline...I'm lost.

Is Paisley to blame? Of course he is...it's his song, but that's country music for you - they're out here telling stories and whatnot and that's just how they work...but this new operation with all this hip-hop coming into play is not working. I'm not sure if it ever will, but if this is a sign of the times to come, I'm not pleased. The thing is, Paisley is speaking how he feels: if I were to tell you how many times I've had the conversation with someone from my church or in the community about the "red flag" and what it represents to them, I'm sure my black friends would recoil in horror, the same way I did when I used to see it plastered to back of pickup trucks in high school.

This is nothing new.

While it represents one thing to me, it represents something very different to them and while we will probably never see eye to eye on this, whatever Paisley and LL were trying to cook up to start the conversation was a bad move.

What do you think of "Accidental Racist" - am I being too critical?