Gone Hip-Hop: Alan Jackson Changes His Tune

by Julian Spivey
Alan Jackson, Country Music Hall of Famer and an artist known as being one of the genre’s most staunchly traditional artists, has been touring the country over the last two years on a tour known as the “Keepin’ It Country Tour.”
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However, a deeper look into Jackson’s set lists and concert videos on sites like YouTube and Twitter shows that the multiple time Grammy, CMA and ACM winner doesn’t always live up to his word on the “Keepin’ It Country Tour” by throwing in covers of popular hip-hop artists sporadically throughout his sets. Yes, you have his No. 1 country hits like “Chattahoochee,” “Don’t Rock the Jukebox” and “Remember When,” but a search online of his tour setlists shows he also likes to mix things up at his live shows with covers of Wiz Khalifa’s “We Dem Boyz,” which he fittingly mashes up with his own 2008 hit “Country Boy,” as well as Lil Wayne’s “Love Me.”

Recently at a show in Bossier City, La. Jackson performed spot on covers of Post Malone’s “Psycho” and Cardi B.’s “Bodak Yellow,” which left many in the jam-packed audience confused with some even going so far as to boo Jackson.

Country music and hip-hop aren’t as culturally divided as they once were with the hip-hop genre’s influences proving to be mighty popular with the mainstream country genre over the last decade with artists like Florida Georgia Line, Sam Hunt and others mixing sounds of the two to great success. But, Jackson, who once recorded the song “Murder on Music Row” with George Strait that excoriated the sounds of other genres infiltrating country, was thought to be a stalwart who would never back down from his traditionalist views.

His recent acceptance of this new, more modern country music sound really does wave the white flag of surrender for many who’ve been trying to save traditional sounding country music from a slow death over the last decade or more.

Jackson once sang: “the almighty dollar and the lust for worldwide fame/slowly killed tradition and for that someone should hang.” But times have surely changed for the Georgia boy who recently performed the lyric, “I’ve been fuckin’ hoes and poppin’ pillies/Man, I feel just like a Rockstar” at a show in Madison, Wis.

Alan Jackson may have the sick beats, but many traditionalists now have the blues.  

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