The Tennessee chapter of the NAACP is joining the long list of people not feeling Jason Aldean’s controversial “Try That in a Small Town” video.
NAACP Chapter President Gloria Sweet-Love told TMZ that the video’s tone, message, and imagery are deeply offensive to people of color, especially Black people. Now, she says, the KKK has posted flyers promoting racism and violence in the same town where the video was filmed.
forwp-incontent-custom-banner ampforwp-incontent-ad1">Several critics as well as fellow country music stars like Sheryl Crow have condemned Aldean’s video, saying he should know better and calling it “lame.” The Country Music Television network has already pulled the video from further view, which the NAACP chapter says was “the right move, all things considered.”
Amid all
the people calling Aldean racist and pro-lynching, given the music video was shot in front of a courthouse that hosted a public lynching of a Black man by a white mob, the country singer continues to stand behind his video. “These references are not only meritless but dangerous,” he wrote on Twitter.“There is not a single lyric in the song
that references race or points to it- and there isn’t a single video clip that isn’t real news footage -and while I can try and respect others to have their own interpretation of a song with music- this one goes too far.”This isn’t the first time an NAACP chapter has spoken out against a country star. In 2021, Morgan Wallen apologized for using the N-word in a resurfaced video, according to Taste of Country. After Wallen was interviewed on Good Morning America by Michael Strahan, Nashville NAACP President Sheryl Guinn claimed the interview was arranged not because Wallen was sorry but because he got caught.