I want to be very clear about something that keeps getting blurred.
Black Americans—not immigrants, not newcomers, but descendants of enslaved people—are the ones who built the United States in the most literal sense. From slavery, to Reconstruction, to surviving and fighting Jim Crow, Black Codes, redlining, and state-sanctioned violence, Black Americans did the heavy lifting that made this country what it is.
That same lineage built country music. The banjo, the blues, gospel, field songs, storytelling traditions—these are Black American creations. Country music exists because of Black American culture, labor, and genius, even when the industry later worked to erase us from it.
Shaboozey being Nigerian by heritage and the child of immigrants matters—and his parents’ sacrifices don’t compare to the sacrifices of Black Americans. We must be honest: his parents were able to immigrate to this country because Black American civil rights fighters dismantled the legal barriers that once made injustices the norm. Those freedoms were not given; they were fought for, bled for, and died for by Black Americans.
So when we talk about who “built” this country or this genre, precision matters. Honoring immigrant sacrifice should never come at the cost of minimizing the centuries-long struggle of Black Americans whose unpaid labor, resistance, and organizing created the foundation others now stand on.
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