Opinion: Jelly Roll's success shows country music should embrace more unconventional artists

In a 2021 interview with Billboard, at the beginning of his ascent to stardom, Jelly Roll described his time growing up in Antioch, Tennessee. He fell in love with hip hop, he said, “not even just music, but the culture — breakdancing, graffiti, freestyling, the clothing.”

At the same time, he was completely oblivious to the bustling country music scene headquartered in Nashville, just 12 miles northwest:

“I didn’t know there was this other country music culture in town.”

Jelly Roll 'is a perfect exception,' music executive says

If you’ve been paying any attention, you know Jelly Roll, born Jason DeFord, isn’t just aware of the country music industry now. He’s dominating it. In the last three years, he’s logged four Country Airplay No. 1s, including the two-time platinum smash “Need a Favor,” which also hit No. 1 on Billboard’s rock and Canadian country charts.

And Jelly’s third country album, “Beautifully Broken,” has already hit the top spot on Billboard’s Top Country Albums chart, as well as the all-genre Billboard 200, following its October 11 release.

All this success has catapulted him way past the boundaries of country music. He was the musical guest on the Sept. 28 season premiere of “Saturday Night Live”; he was also featured on the TV series “Tulsa King” starring Sylvester Stallone.

But this cross-genre appeal hasn’t come at the expense of his Nashville base. Jelly isn’t just accepted as country music’s newest hit maker. He is welcomed by the machine — applauded, even, for his ability to move audiences with his uniqueness and authenticity.

During a 2024 Country Radio Seminar panel titled “Leadership, Strategy, and Optimizing Country’s Surge in 2024”, Cindy Mabe, CEO and Chair of Universal Music Group Nashville, spoke to the need for country music to grow wider instead of just deeper. It’s not enough to make more money from its current base, she explained, when the base itself needs to be extended, capturing new fans and new, untapped, dollars.

She then referenced John Loba, the current BMG president whose Broken Bow Records signed Jelly to his first country label deal in 2021. “I think he set this in motion and on fire in a big way with Jelly Roll, with Lainey Wilson," Mabe said. "I think these are things that had been missing from who we are and how our fans identify. The stories that they’re telling are as critical as they’ve ever been.”

Loba, sitting to Mabe’s right, acknowledged his label’s history of “painting outside the lines.”

“Our biggest successes have always been taking chances, fighting for artists whose voice maybe hadn’t been heard,” he said.

And later, regarding Jelly’s support from the notoriously hard to crack country radio format: “Jelly Roll is a perfect exception where there were a small group of guys and women who took a shot without necessarily the metrics there, and you see the result of that.”

Unlike with Beyoncé, country music didn't hold Jelly Roll's hip hop past against him

If you’ve been paying any attention, you know just how remarkable this wide-armed embrace of Jelly Roll is.

In September, upon learning that Beyoncé didn’t receive a single Country Music Award nomination (despite “Cowboy Carter” reaching No. 1 on the Top Country Album chart and “Texas Hold ‘Em” spending ten weeks atop the “Hot Country Songs” chart), Dolly Parton referenced Beyoncé’s lack of country music bona fides.

“There’s so many wonderful country artists that, I guess probably the country music field, they probably thought, well, we can’t really leave out some of the ones that spend their whole life doing that,” she said.

Yet in 2023, Jelly Roll, who released seven hip hop albums before crossing into country, was named CMA New Artist of the Year. This year, he’s nominated for Best Male Vocalist and the highly coveted Entertainer of the Year. His 2023 LP “Whitsitt Chapel” is up for Album of the Year.

There is no apples-to-apples comparison of Beyoncé and Jelly Roll, and as I previously wrote, Beyoncé will be fine, even without the Country Music Association’s cosign. But it’s important to note the other creatives outside the industry fold who do need that approval and support — that recognition that no one’s background or experiences should preclude them from one day having a career in country music.

Jelly's ascension is the American ideal at its best

If you’ve been paying attention, you know Jelly Roll isn’t just a former rapper. He’s also a former drug addict and drug dealer — a man who, by his own admission, was part of the problem.

Jelly’s past is not mere biographical context. In many ways, it has become the foundation of his career. His songs and many of his promotional interviews focus on his addiction and the long road to recovery, the mistakes he’s made and his attempts to atone.

I’ve seen a few folks accuse Jelly of focusing too much on his checkered history, as if BBR execs huddled in a room and determined that the Moneyball approach to marketing a large, heavily tattooed convicted felon in mainstream country was to lean into said felonies.

Without speaking to how often Jelly should share his past, or which elements he should highlight, I will simply say that I believe his ascension from inmate to idol reflects the best of the American ideal and, likewise, the fullest of country music’s potential.

Country is said to be the music of the everyman — the unvarnished, unpretentious telling of the stories of our lives, from the bad break up, to the Friday night out with friends, to, in Jelly Roll’s case, the constant tug-of-war between good and evil.

My problem is the deep-seated exclusions in and around country music that determine who gets the opportunity to share those stories.

Black artists shouldn't be forced into hip hop and R&B

It's an arguable point to say that if Jelly Roll were a Black rapper with a mile-long rap sheet, he probably wouldn’t have a shot at mainstream country music, Nashville roots be damned.

I say this because I know many Black artists who’ve only ever loved country, and who've followed all the rules, and who still haven’t had a shot at the mainstream.

Add in the would-be Black country songwriters and producers, the Black guitarists who dream of standing at the front of the stage on a country tour or playing on a major label cut and you could either build an army of folks ready to work alongside industry execs to help create the future Mabe and others have said they want to see — or erect a cemetery full of dashed dreams and scuttled hopes.

Yet even as I write that, I know that at least a few folks will reach out to me, accusing me of focusing on too much on race in country music as they mention one of the handful of Black men who have achieved mainstream success over the genre’s history. (They will not mention any commercially successful Black women in country music because, excluding Beyoncé, there haven’t been any.)

And they will remind me that country music is supposed to be white, though they won’t state this explicitly. What they will say instead:

Black artists have hip hop and R&B, and while their white counterparts have the option to try different styles of music, sliding back and forth as they see fit, it is in hip hop and R&B that Black artists must remain.

Andrea Williams is an opinion columnist for The Tennessean and curator of the Black Tennessee Voices initiative. Email her at [email protected] or follow her on X (formerly known as Twitter) at @AndreaWillWrite.

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Opinion: Country music embraced Jelly Roll. Black artists deserve same