Black Opry creates a safe space for Black country music fans

Years before Beyoncé dropped Act II: Cowboy Carter, country music enthusiast Holly G couldn’t get any of her friends to attend a concert. Though frustrated, she ended up stumbling on to something better: a community of Black musicians, industry professionals, and fans.

“It was frustrating wanting to go to concerts and not having anyone I could convince to go with me,” she told Andscape. “Especially as I’ve gotten older, it feels more and more important for me to be able to be surrounded with people who share my identity in many ways.”

Holly G channeled her frustration into the blog Black Opry, a play on the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville, Tennessee, dubbed country music’s biggest stage. Three years later, the website has grown into a collective of people who are working to create a safe place for Black people to enjoy the genre and freely create country, blues, folk and Americana music.

“I started the blog April 1, 2021, and that first month, I wanted to highlight a different Black artist every day,” Holly G said. “So I made a few connections with artists that way but, honestly, by the fourth day of the blog even being up, there were a bunch of them reaching out to me, like ‘Oh my God, we’ve been waiting for a space like this. Thank you for putting it together.’ “

Over the past few years, the site has grown to include a national tour, the Black Opry Revue, which will make more than a dozen stops in the United States this year. But producing a tour has been a humbling experience.

“[Artists] are like, damn, no one usually takes care of us this way,” Holly G said. “I cannot find anyone else in any genre of music, not even like the musical theater space, that tours the way we do.”

Tanner Davenport, Black Opry’s co-director, agreed, highlighting the organization’s commitment to helping artists receive access to new venues and fans. “We had a group of people [on tour] in December 2022 who played the Troubadour. If we look back at the beginning of their careers, it’d be really hard to tell them one day you’re going to play the Troubadour in California. For them to do the kind of music they want to do in that space, just felt like it was not able to be obtained, like they wouldn’t ever be able to do that.”

Instead of relying on booking agents, Holly G and Davenport choose the artists who will perform at each venue on the tour. They also treat artists as their own act instead of a part of a lineup. They pay for the artists’ travel and their time, including a guaranteed share of ticket sales at each venue up-front. Black Opry does it, Holly G said, because they want artists to concentrate solely on putting on a great show.

“When you’re dealing with marginalized artists, these are people who are not working in the industry a lot of the time,” she explained. “They have to take off work, and streaming doesn’t pay, so the only way you can hope to make money is through selling merch and performing.”

Davenport suggested that fans who want to learn more about modern artists in the genre should listen to women such as Denitia, Julie Williams, Roberta Lea, and Brittany Spencer, who have been in country music for years.

Holly G is excited about the current discussion about Black people, specifically Black women, in country music since Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter arrived in late March. But for her, it will take more than one album from a superstar to effect lasting change.

“I was at a country music seminar a couple of weeks ago, when those two songs [Beyonce’s ‘Texas Hold ‘Em’ and ’16 Carriages’] dropped right after the Super Bowl, and the conversation [became] ‘We’re so proud of ourselves for the way we’ve embraced Beyoncé,’ ” Holly G said. “You have cowered to a global celebrity, as you should, but that’s not the same as respecting the women in this space.”

She likens it to President Barack Obama’s historic election as the nation’s first Black president, which was seen as progress. “Unfortunately, [Beyoncé’s success] might have the opposite effect, where now, they’re like, ‘OK, the work is done because we’ve had a Black woman go No. 1.’ ” But just as Obama’s second term was followed by the election of President Donald Trump, it’s clear that lasting change needs to be continually fought for.

To be clear, Holly G is critical of the country music industry, not Beyoncé. Black Opry champions artists’ right to make whatever kind of music they wish because gatekeeping what country music is or should sound like is how the industry has been able to keep so many Black performers out.

“We encourage what she’s doing. We also have to be very careful about the way we’re framing this moment so that it doesn’t end up looking like there was progress or effort made on behalf of people who never made it,” Holly G said.

That, and many country music festivals and concerts still refuse to be welcoming to Black patrons.

Holly G and Davenport are often invited to attend concerts and festivals as press, which she believes mitigates the experience they would have as regular Black fans.

“Since we’ve been doing this, there hasn’t been anything that’s changed substantially or significantly to the point where I would feel any different just going to these concerts as a fan,” Holly G said. 

When a new tour is announced, Davenport said he’ll often ask Holly G if she wants to go, and she flat-out says no.

Part of the reason: Holly G is adamant about not attending certain events because of how she’s been spoiled — she’ll get to go backstage or have a more comfortable experience as a member of the press. But the other part, the larger part, is because these spaces haven’t done enough work to improve the experience for Black attendees.

“I’m not going to subject myself to that,” she explained simply. “There’s not a single place in Nashville that deals with country music that we have not had a conversation with and I’ve not seen any actionable steps be taken.”

Holly G said institutions can do something as simple as addressing the cyberbullying Black artists often experience when they’re announced on festival and show bills, which could also change the culture at venues. She mentioned a popular Black female country singer who has talked about all of the death threats she gets after she plays certain shows. Holly G declined to name the artist or the venue.

“So I was like, can we make a statement on anti-cyberbullying?” she recalled. “You don’t have to mention race, gender, sexuality — but that is a step of good faith to show that you at least are gonna try to have her back.”

The institution declined.

“The only way to make these spaces safer is for you to say out loud, ‘We don’t want these people at our shows.’ The only person who’s done that — and this was a person and not a country music institution — was Jason Isbell, who does that all the time. He repeatedly says, ‘I do not want any a–holes at my show.’ “

For its three-year anniversary, Black Opry is honoring Alice Randall, the first Black songwriter to write a No. 1 country song, “XXX’s and OOO’s (An American Girl),” which was recorded by Trisha Yearwood in 1994.

The celebration coincides with the release of Randall’s book, My Black Country: A Journey Through Country Music’s Black Past, Present, and Future, out this month. It showcases contemporary Black artists paying tribute to Randall and singing her songs.

“We can’t fix the industry but one of the things that we do have the power to correct is honoring and giving flowers to the people who have been in the trenches,” Holly G said.

For Black Opry, it’s important to create paces to celebrate Black artists because, while Holly G and Davenport are able to attend awards shows, they’re not typically able to see Black artists in those spaces because they’re not nominated.

“We have so much living Black country music history,” Holly G said. “We’re not the Country Music Awards but we hope that the level of respect and affection that we have for [Randall] is felt in a way that makes a difference for her, just in case no one else does it.”