Tribeca 2024: Rebel Country Explores The Evolution Of Country Music, But Still Has A Ways To Go
Country music seems to be one of the most controversial genres of music. Battling beyond the realm of the creative arts, country music seems to be ever involving larger conversations around diversity, politics, and the evolution of a single music genre. The documentary Rebel Country, which debuted at Tribeca Festival 2024, aims to dissect the recent evolution in the genre as it garners larger audiences outside of the stereotypical country music fan.
For much of country music’s history, the genre has been dominated by straight white men and the occasional standout female. This singular voice seemed to deter listeners as it lacks a representation of the country in which the genre is uniquely produced from. As country music seems to be changing with the times, it begs the question of where did this all start and how did we get here? Much of the first act of Rebel Country is focused largely on the inception of the country music genre as it started in the working class in the South. Divided and then packaged separately into country twang and ‘Black music,’ country was divisive from the start. This context is extremely important in understanding where the stereotypes of the genre initiated.
Lainey Wilson, Steve Earle, Emmylou Harris, Jelly Roll, Blanco Brown, Jake Blount, Rissi Palmer, Frank Ray, Brooke Eden, Sam Williams, BRELAND, and Lindsay Ell are all artists who participated in the ninety minute documentary. Many of these musicians were able to find success independently and be discovered by audiences online versus the the typical record label wheelhouse. While the focus of the film is to explore the diversity of artists, even their subjects lacked true representation of the young hitmakers who are really making waves. The later half of the documentary seems to gloss over the race issue of the genre and skip right into rebellious and queer artists. While Jelly Roll has an interesting story of resilience and changing your life for the better, it doesn’t stray far from many rappers and other popular musical artist’s stories. Lainey Wilson, who is packaged to be another rebellious artist, just happens to be from a small farm town. These stories don’t offer much of the diversity and progress that this documentary promises to examine.
While queer artists have always existed in country music, many were not open about it until recently. While this aspect poses an interesting topic, it lacks the other side of the story which is how record labels package and influence artists. The artists they included are all relatively new and small compared to larger singers who have been open for far longer about their sexuality.
I would have loved to see family duo Brothers Osborne included in the documentary as they have had massive success in the genre. TJ Osborne was the first openly gay artists on a major country label and has been outspoken about the fact that he doesn’t include pronouns in their songs so it doesn’t make anyone uncomfortable to sing their lyrics. This subtle but intentional approach to writing is a clear indication of their compassion and a nod to where the genre of country music is moving towards.
In trying to show how far the genre has come so far, the documentary inadvertently highlights how far it still has to go. While Rebel Country poses some interesting questions and examines necessary topics, it lacks depth that I think could have been explored more deeply in a docuseries.
