Jason Aldean, no stranger to the tradition wars, riled up fairly just a few folks together with his new single and music video. That quantity apparently contains the programmers at Nation Music Tv.

“Strive That In A Small City,” the lead single from Aldean’s subsequent album, addresses a number of sub-groups together with thieves, anti-police protestors, and gun management advocates, primarily lumping all of them collectively into one bucket of people that ought to not “attempt that in a small city.” Aldean invitations these of us to “see how far ya make it down the highway” as a result of “round right here, we handle our personal.” It’s a music about how anybody who tries to impose progressive values or try petty crime (the 2 are conflated, see) might be topic to a vicious beating by “good ol’ boys” in rural America, which is framed as a beacon of morality.

The video, launched final Friday, finds Aldean performing in entrance of a courthouse, interspersed with photos of individuals confronting cops, robbing comfort shops, and many others. Close to the top, we see footage of Americana and listen to a soundbite about farmers leaving their fields to handle a neighbor in want. Particularly, the clip was filmed at Maury County Courthouse in Columbia, TN, the place an 18-year-old Black man named Henry Choate was lynched in 1927 after being accused of accused of attacking a white woman. The selection of setting led some onlookers to take a position that Aldean is singing about lynching, not simply beating folks up.

Now, as Billboard experiences, CMT has pulled the video. The community, which premiered “Strive That In A Small City” Friday and had it in heavy rotation over the weekend, has not given a motive for taking it off the air.

Aldean issued the next assertion:

Up to now 24 hours I’ve been accused of releasing a pro-lynching music (a music that has been out since Could) and was topic to the comparability that I (direct quote) was not too happy with the nationwide BLM protests. These references are usually not solely meritless, however harmful. There may be not a single lyric within the music that references race or factors to it- and there isn’t a single video clip that isn’t actual information footage -and whereas I can attempt to respect others to have their very own interpretation of a music with music- this one goes too far.

As so many identified, I used to be current at Route 91-where so many misplaced their lives- and our group lately suffered one other heartbreaking tragedy. NO ONE, together with me, desires to proceed to see mindless headlines or households ripped aside.

Strive That In A Small City, for me, refers back to the feeling of a group that I had rising up, the place we took care of our neighbors, no matter variations of background or perception. As a result of they had been our neighbors, and that was above any variations. My political beliefs have by no means been one thing I’ve hidden from, and I do know that numerous us on this Nation don’t agree on how we get again to a way of normalcy the place we go at the least a day with no headline that retains us up at night time. However the want for it to- that’s what this music is about.

Aldean kicked off his Freeway Desperado Tour over the weekend and succumbed to warmth exhaustion at Saturday’s present in Hartford. Final yr, his spouse Brittany was concerned in a high-profile spat over gender id that additionally concerned Tucker Carlson and Maren Morris. Again in 2015, he donned blackface and dressed as Lil Wayne for Halloween.