Adeem the Artist Offers Scathing Parody of Jason Aldean’s ‘Try That in a Small Town’
Joining the chorus of artists including Sheryl Crow and Margo Price who are criticizing Jason Aldean’s new song and video, “Try That in a Small Town,” is Adeem the Artist, a non-binary artist who has released albums including 2021’s Cast Iron Pansexual and 2022’s White Trash Revelry, which landed on many year-end best-of lists.
On Twitter, Adeem the Artist posted a video of a scathing song that parodies Aldean’s “Small Town,” bringing into the open an interpretation of the song that many on social media believe as “Small Town,” using coded language connected with sundown towns — neighborhoods that practice racial segregation, by excluding non-white persons via violence or intimidation.
They captioned the video, “Alright I caved to my record label and did a cover of the new Jason Aldean song. Please share it around and enjoy! I love COUNTRY MUSIC! and how inclusive it is.”
The video opens with Adeem the Artist stating, “I’m gonna level with you here. I don’t agree with the politics of Jason Aldean in any way, but I gotta call from the record execs this morning and they said he’s trending really well and if we want to see some higher impressions and some retweets, stuff like that, we really should do a cover of a Jason Aldean song. I thought, ‘Well, impressions is what I care about most, so let’s do this! So please share away. This is Jason Aldean’s new hit, it’s called ‘Sundown Town.'”
The song snippet is infused with lyrics about people who “never got a godd**n COVID test,” and depicts a town where “we got no protestors/ civil unrest…and we root for the cops to stop people like you.”
The song also takes a shot at country singers who don’t write their own songs, with the lyrics, “Even though I didn’t write this sh*t I’m singing about/ I just read the words and say ‘Yeah that one is good…'” before deadpanning, “…as long as it implies a gown and a hood.'”
Adeem the Artist is nominated for emerging act of the year at the upcoming Americana Music Honors & Awards ceremony in September.
As the controversy continues to swirl around “Try That in a Small Town,” viewership for the song’s video has surged, reaching nearly 6 million views on YouTube and rising to No. 1 on YouTube’s music trending page. Over the past day, the song has also risen to No. 1 on the overall iTunes US top songs chart.
Jessica Nicholson
Billboard
