Randy Rogers Expresses His Feelings About Rap In Country Music

Currently touring on the West Coast, Randy Rogers was interviewed by the Spokesman-Review in Spokane, and helped put into context the hatred of rap in country that many feel...

Here are just a few bits and pieces from that interview.

Randy Rogers opened up and held nothing back in expressing his feelings about rap in country music, saying...'People can tell the difference between (B.S.) and not (B.S.). I’ll second the motion to say there shouldn’t be rap in country music, but I will go on the record saying I like Kendrick Lamar. I like my rap. But when I think of country music, I think of Merle Haggard.'

'We grew up on fiddle and steel in Texas. We learned to play guitar from Willie Nelson records. It’s part of the fabric of who we were,” says Randy Rogers. 'You can’t take that out . . . That’s been the music from day one with this band.'

There’s nothing wrong with any genre of music, pop included. It’s just not country. And unlike other genres, country music from the very beginning was not about maintaining a modern sound, it was about preserving the musical traditions of the past. That is why country music becomes such a battlefield when commercial enterprises attempt to stretch the boundaries of the genre until all of the roots of the music are lost.

The Randy Rogers Band will be releasing a new highly-anticipated record in 2018, and Randy Rogers wants to let you know that it will be country—real country.

Randy says... 'We’ve made records before where there were country songs on the record, but this one, the songs are as country as anything we’ve made. They’re ‘Strait country'. I say that with respect. George Strait is my biggest hero.'