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Country music singer Morgan Wallen surprised fans with an unannounced appearance on the Grand Ole Opry stage in Nashville, Tennessee, on Saturday.
Wallen, who has not been seen in the public eye since being filmed using a racial slur in a January 2021 video, appeared on the stage alongside country artist ERNEST. The Opry tweeted about the performance, leading many to interpret it as a blessing to Wallen and a path to reconciliation for his actions last year.
The video shows Wallen after a night out using a racial slur. According to Entertainment Weekly, some organizations temporarily banned him, he was barred from the 2021 Billboard Music Awards and was deemed ineligible for the 2021 American Country Music (ACM) Awards.
Many performers criticized the Opry for the decision to allow Wallen on stage, saying it could have troubling consequences for artists of color in country music. His performance led also to criticism of the mostly white institution and its history as a gatekeeper.
"Morgan Wallen's thoughtless redemption tour is the nail in the coffin of me realizing these systems and this town is not really for us," Joy Oladokun wrote on Twitter on Sunday.
"It's the idea of a young Black artist walking into that venue and wondering if ANYBODY is on their side," Jason Isbell wrote on Twitter. "What a lot of us consider to be a grand ole honor can be terrifying for some."
While Wallen was suspended from his label before his songs were pulled from radio, he remained the most popular artist of 2021 across all genres. He resumed touring last year and began releasing new music, including collaborations with Black rapper Lil Durk, as well as ERNEST.
Wallen's surprise return and performance came the same weekend as Grammy-nominated country star Mickey Guyton tweeted about a racist commenter. White country star RaeLynn said in an interview with a conservative podcaster that the genre was not racist because she had never experienced it herself.
In 2021, writer Holly G started a blog called the Black Opry to create a home for Black artists and fans. It has grown in less than a year to a full-fledged community and performances at venues around the country. Enthusiasm for what she created has grown so much that venues have been reaching out to book shows.
She met with the Opry's talent director with a proposal to host a show next month for Black History Month in conjunction with the Black Opry. She said the Opry's rep stressed that they were carefully selecting who appeared on their stage.
Following Wallen's appearance, Holly G wrote a letter asking for an explanation of how the Opry felt that Wallen met its standards.
"They have figured out they can invite a few Black performers to the stage and give them debuts and that will quiet or calm people down for a little bit," she told the Associated Press on Monday. "But if you look at the structural set-up for the institution, nothing has changed. They have two Black members over the entire history of the institution."
A publicist for the Opry did not return a request for comment from AP, and Holly G said she also had not received a response to her letter as of Tuesday morning.
Charles Hughes, a professor at Rhodes College in Memphis and author of Country Soul: Making Music and Making Race in the American South, said playing the Opry—one of the most important institutions in the genre's history—legitimizes artists.
Hughes said Wallen's path, via the Opry and other stages he is performing on, appears like the "wayward white artist" being welcomed back into the family.
"The narrative of reconciliation is a really powerful one...and reconciliation without any reckoning, real reckoning, can actually end up worse," Hughes said. "'Cause if you don't address the problem, you just sort of act like it didn't happen."
The confluence of all these incidents in a few short days has been exhausting for artists from various racial and ethnic backgrounds, Holly G said. That's why she sees a need to create new spaces and organizations apart from the genre's long-standing institutions that haven't made everyone feel welcome.
"We'll create our own audiences and our own stages and our own traditions," she said. "It doesn't feel very worth fighting to share space with people who unequivocally do not want you there."
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
