- cross-posted to:
- music@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- music@lemmy.world
Emerging stars are starting to critique Trump’s immigration crackdown – defying the genre’s legacy of conservatism
Ray himself waded into the topic of immigration in 2023 with Jesus at the Taco Truck, written and performed with Shy Carter, about a man named Jesus with scars on his feet and hands from crossing the Rio Grande.
Did you hear it on the radio? Probably not. That’s because anything considered mainstream in the genre shies away from social commentary that doesn’t pass the sniff test of conservatism.
Bryan answered by explaining in a post that the song “hits on both sides of the aisle”. He later added: “Left wing or right wing, we’re all one bird and American. To be clear, I’m on neither of these radical sides.” But this both-sides-ism felt incongruent with the song’s scathing message, heard in full for the first time on 9 January: law enforcement, ICE, and the onslaught of gun violence in America are contributing to the “fading of the red, white and blue”. (Bryan’s team declined an interview offer.)
It’s a start, but it is so milquetoast.


