| Nashville Tennessean
Big Loud Records has announced that it will suspend the recording contract of country star Morgan Wallen after the singer shouted a racial uproar over the weekend.
“In light of recent events, Big Loud Records has taken the decision to suspend Morgan Wallen’s recording contract indefinitely,” announced the label Wednesday.
According to the statement, Republic Records partners with Big Loud in Wallen’s latest version, “Dangerous” – “Big Loud’s decision fully and agrees that such behavior will not be tolerated.”
A video shows Morgan (27) being dropped off at a house and telling a friend to ‘take care of this …’ (slur), apparently referring to another person in the group.
“I am embarrassed and sorry,” Wallen said in a statement after the video was posted by TMZ on Tuesday. “I used an unacceptable and inappropriate racial utterance that I wish I could take back. There are never excuses for using this type of language. I sincerely apologize for using the word. I promise to do better. . “
Wallen did not address the incident on Wednesday morning on any of his social media channels. Comments are limited to Wallen and Big Loud’s Instagram accounts.
Outside Wallen’s circle, the industry response was rapid. A spokesman for iHeartMedia – the largest radio owner in the US, with more than 800 stations – said they had removed Wallen’s music from rotation.
He is also conspicuously absent from Spotify’s top country playlist, “Hot Country”, as well as Apple Music’s “Today’s Country” – despite currently having five of the top ten songs on Billboard’s “Hot Country Songs” chart has.
The cable network CMT has also announced that it will remove Wallen’s “appearance of all our platforms”.
“We do not tolerate or tolerate words and deeds that are in direct opposition to our core values that celebrate diversity, equity and inclusion.”
In recent years, Wallen has become the biggest new star of country music. He topped the Billboard 200 Album list for the past three weeks and was named the new artist of the year at the CMA Awards.
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The year was marred by other incidents. Wallen has been arrested for public intoxication and disorderly conduct outside Kid Rock’s honky tonk in downtown Nashville, and plans to perform on ‘SNL’ after hanging out with strangers in Tuscaloosa, Ala. program invited him two months later.)
Mickey Guyton was one of the country artists who responded to the news. The singer – who recently became the first black female solo artist to receive a Grammy nomination in a rural category – tweeted, “The hatred runs deep.”
One prominent reaction comes from singer-songwriter Jason Isbell, whose song ‘Cover Me Up’ was recorded by Wallen and appears on his top album.
“Wallen’s behavior is disgusting and abominable,” Isbell tweeted. “I think it’s an opportunity for the country music industry to give the place to someone who deserves it, and there are a lot of black artists who deserve it.”
While other singers suggested that Wallen’s performance did not reflect Nashville and country music in its entirety, Maren Morris said: ‘It’s actually a representative of our city, because it’s not his first’ dispute ‘and he just’ a great current record last demolished regardless of the month. We all know that this was not the first time he used the word. We keep them rich and protected at all costs, without using. ‘