At the most recent Grammy Awards ceremony in March, the country singer Mickey Guyton performed “Black Like Me,” a song that had made her the first Black woman ever nominated for solo country performance and ultimately changed the course of her career.
31 in Los Angeles, were announced on Tuesday, the Texas-born singer and songwriter was recognized in three categories — best country album, best country song and best country solo performance — for her debut full-length, “Remember Her Name,” and its title track.
Fresh off a flight on Tuesday evening, Guyton, who has also made a name for herself as an outspoken activist in notoriously insular Nashville, discussed by phone how her second batch of nominations differed from her first and what exactly makes something country.
I was on the plane and I was texting my husband, like, “Hear anything?” “Nope.” Then all of a sudden I got all these text messages.
This whole album came from me and what I thought I should release, and that’s something I’ve never done.
Last Grammys you became the first Black woman nominated for best solo country performance and played “Black Like Me” on the show.
All my songs are pretty socially conscious, and this one was that, too, but it was actually my own story.
I get messages from not only Black women but women, period, feeling encouraged — and men! Feeling encouraged to just be 100 percent who they are.
But from looking at the way things have been done in the past, I’ve realized that it’s not enough for one country artist, one person of color, to make it every now and again — every 25 years, every 5 years, every 10 years.
In addition to the Grammys, you’ve performed at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, co-hosted and been nominated at the ACMs, been nominated at the CMAs, you’re performing at the Thanksgiving parade and the Rockefeller Christmas tree lighting ceremony.
There are other avenues for people to listen to me, and they’re finding me — and thank God for that.
If the artist is telling you that it is, I feel like that’s enough and we should accept it.
Morgan Wallen was totally shut out of Grammy nominations, even with one of the best-selling releases of the year and after an album of the year nod from the CMAs.
I hope people feel the weight of their actions, but I don’t ever want to see anybody fail.