Joe Budden has had several controversial opinions throughout his podcast career — and he’s keeping up with that tradition with his take on Jason Aldean’s “Try That In A Small Town.”
In an episode of The Joe Budden Podcast which dropped on Saturday (August 5), the former Slaughterhouse MC mused on the racial undertones of the song and its accompanying video, and felt it was much ado about nothing.
“I don’t see a bunch of Black people burnin’ up flags — that’s some white people shit,” he said. “Do I think that dude could be on bullshit? Yes. I do. Let me be clear. I do think that.”
He continued: “The emotional outrage? I’m over it. If he’s not saying n-gger, or killing some Black people in the video, then them n-ggas can do what the fuck they want to in their small town. Because they’re going to always frame it as, ‘I’m speaking from the perspective of the small town over here.'”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Zso7P5CPK8
Jason Aldean’s “Try That In A Small Town,” which went to No. 1 on the Billboard country charts, received a gaggle of backlash due to its incendiary lyrics (“Cuss out a cop, spit in his face / Stomp on the flag and light it up / Yeah, ya think you’re tough / Well, try that in a small town / See how far ya make it down the road”) and accompanying video (filmed at a former lynching site), which many people viewed as racist, according to KBTX.
“The courthouse was also the site of the infamous Columbia Race Riot in 1946 that left two Black men dead, more than 100 arrested, and 25 tried by jury on charges of shooting at white police officers,” reported the outlet.
Though several country music stations temporarily pulled the song from their lineups, Aldean came back to defend it.
“In the past 24 hours I have been accused of releasing a pro-lynching song (a song that has been out since May) and was subject to the comparison that I (direct quote) was not too pleased with the nationwide BLM protests,” he wrote on Twitter. “These references are not only meritless, but dangerous. There is not a single lyric in the song that references race or points to it- and there isn’t a single video clip that isn’t real news footage -and while I can try and respect others to have their own interpretation of a song with music- this one goes too far.”
Interestingly, however, Jason Aldean wasn’t always a controversial figure in Hip Hop.
Back in 2011, Ludacris performed with Jason Aldean at the CMT Music Awards for a collaboration.
The two performed a revamped rendition of his hit “Dirt Road Anthem,” touting a verse from Luda reconfigured from the second verse of the original tune.
The CMT Music Awards are a fan-voted awards show celebrating country music videos.
Kid Rock — another figure that has gone full MAGA in recent years — hosted that year’s event, which also featured performances from Keith Urban, Rascal Flatts, Sugarland, Lady Antebellum and more.
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I’m a power bottom . if there’s any tops out there interested, hit me up
Yeah, Aldean was on some bullsh!t. He didn’t have any shots of those MAGA dudes beating cops with flags on January 6th. He didn’t have any shots of the Klan burning crosses. Why? Because those things are allowed in the “small towns” he’s talking about. By certain people, of course.
Right! Or why didn’t he show depictions of the American revolution too?!?! Like, thos treasonous traitors literally MURDERED their own people to illegally start America!
No one that’s serious cares about January 6th. No one got charged with an “insurrection”. It’s all political persecution.
JackSmith has entered the chat.
All of the Joint Chiefs would like a word.
Yeah he should have showed the Democrats, who started the KKK, Jim Crow, slavery and the lynching of black men. The Democrats are trying to change their history, and blame Republicans for what they themselves have done to this country and to minorities throughout history. Maybe he should have put Joe Biden, and Joe Machine in the video of them praising the former KKK leader and Democrat Senator Robert Byrd, as well as Biden doing the ulogy at his funeral. The real evil was and always has been in the Democrat party.
All this is true. And I don’t love the Democratically party as much as you seem to love the Republican Party. But quit going back decades m, and even centuries, to find when Republicans were good to Black people. Today, the KKK are Republicans. They openly support Republicans. Go to stormfront.org, a known racist white supremacist website, and see who those guys love and follow. So yes, Democrats aren’t the party people think they are. But don’t try to paint Republicans as these great people who Blacks should lean on. There’s a reason racist whites and white supremacists fly Trump flags. And it’s not because they love how Trump and Republicans love Black people.
@Tommy – guess we’re just completely ignoring the fact that Democrats and Republicans completely switched platforms starting in the late 1800’s post slavery and fully transitioning in the early 1930’s when FDR became president. The policies of the Abraham Lincoln controlled Republican party were what would be viewed at as today being “liberal”. Fact is, during the civil war, the north was predominantly republicans who believed in expanding the government, and the south was made up of slave owning democrats who wanted less government and made racist policies against minorities. Read a book sometime.
All i want to say is FACT !!!
In big cities, crime is glorified. If you speak out against crime or criminals committing crimes on camera, liberals get triggered because their base is a pile of shit.
Here’s the thing anyone can protest anything anyway they like and people can not like it but every citizen is entitled to their opinion. Goes for everyone bar none. Killer Mike said it best “If you don’t support free speech you don’t agree with ,you don’t support free speech at all.
It’s funny how that guy gets called a racist by people obsessed with “repping their hood”. When people yell “black lives matter” do they show all the footage of black people gunning each other down, robbing, burning down local black owned businesses and slinging crack? By the way I heard the song and it’s massively cringy but yet again the race card is being pulled with an astounding lack of self awareness.
I’ll just pick you out and hit you with a run on sentence……….why are you here if you have a problem with this? This is a hiphop site, which is based on hiphop…and just so you know hiphop started in the projects……which is where some white people had set aside land for a LOT of black people to be able to afford, this is all based upon the socio-economical problems that we have based upon our delusional ancestors viewpoint. So just to not keep going on….again, why are you here?
It’s amazing the selective outrage. When you look at some rap and some of the negativity. Not a peep just pure silence. Then a country song comes out which in my opinion isn’t racist. All these weak minded people call it racist. Get a life.
To be fair I don’t think it was really a issue until the more cringy video came out at a historical lynching and race riot site. I think the video production was alarmingly lacking awareness. I don’t think the lyrics sound racist outside the context of the music video.
There were several other musicians who use that courthouse as a backdrop for their videos as well nothing was ever said about those. It’s all a bunch of BS outrage over nothing. The real outrage should have been about the destruction, robberies, and murders of innocent people.
There were many musical stars who used that Courthouse as a backdrop in their videos. The race baiters in the mainstream media, Hollywood and the Democrat party are always trying to stir up some BS. The video he used was real news footage, there should have been pushback on the riots, robberies, destruction and murders back then, but people were to afraid to be excoriated by the race hustling media and profiteers, like career race baiters Al Sharpton etc… Facts are Facts and the song depicted real life anarchy and unnecessary BS. Including the killing of a black Police Captain who was retired and just trying to protect his friends business from criminals stealing fucking tvs from his store and died on the street, which I watched the video of, that was posted on Twitter, Killed a man over a F’N TV.
” Try that in a small town” .
How come there is no footage of Jan 6, when people actually were punching cops and desecrating the flag? Seems like if you were looking for riot footage from the past few years to make a point, you’d include the biggest riot of all. Hmmm, wonder why that was left out?
There is mass amounts of footage, but you have to watch something other than right wing media to see it because they don’t show it. I watched it happen live that day. 5 people died… a capitol office died protecting our capitol. They rooted the day our election was being certified. They tried to overturn our election. Trump actively tried to steal the presidency from Biden. Put on your big girl panties and suck it up… yall lost! I used to be a Republican, yall are right, the party has changed. Now it is something racist and gross and here in Florida the GOP is in our schools, businesses, pocket books, homes… it is disgusting and not the party I grew up loving!
A couple of facts here. Pretty much every historic site in the south, specially courthouses ar historical lunching and race riot locations. It’s the courthouse of the town he’s from. People are making it sound like he found some courthouse that has a secret past and filmed there. Literally the ONLY courthouse in the small town he is from. Wether the guy is racist or not, the song certainly doesn’t imply that or even remotely suggest it. People are always fishing for some kind of outrage when there is plenty of real outrage that’s overlooked. I am not a fan of country music. People talked all of this shit so I watched the video. Dude is now number 1 in the country because people are idiots, and I for one love it. Carry on.
He grew up in Macon Georgia. That courthouse is very close to Nashville and for that reason has been used not only for music videos but also movies and television.
I agree with Jason and stand by him 💯%