Charles Anderson

Jason Aldean’s ‘small town’ summarized: I’m from Louisville Kentucky. It’s a pretty big city. Louisville is ranked 27th in population. Its bigger than cities like Baltimore, Atlanta, Detroit, and even Pittsburgh. (Believe it or not.) In the late 90’s alone I lost at least 20 friends to gun violence. I’ve been robbed, shot at, beaten, and even stabbed in the top of my left foot in a robbery gone wrong. I have at least 20 more friends doing life for murder and/or RICO indictments. At age 16 I was tried as an adult for armed robbery. I was later paroled from some of Kentucky’s most violent prisons at age 21. I got sick of the urban culture and decided I needed a change. I moved to a ‘small town’ an hour and a half south of Louisville. AND. I. FLOURISHED. Small towns are not ‘white’ by any stretch of the imagination. On the contrary, small towns are full of people that simply do not wish to subscribe to big city problems. I live in an upper class cul de sac that consists of people from all walks of life. A Venezuelan emergency heart surgeon, a black police family, a black Jewish family, a Ukrainian family that owns a local HVAC business, a southeast Asian family that’s involved in dance and gymnastics, a Cuban family that does caretaking, and another Venezuelan family that owns a residential cleaning company. White people are BARELY the majority in my neighborhood, and guess what? All of our children play together, we all interact lovingly as neighbors, we eat together, we do business together, and we all THRIVE together. This resonates beyond my cul de sac. My entire ‘small town’ community is Mexican, white, black, Honduran, Ukrainian, Guatemalan, the list goes on and on and on. We have no protests. No riots. No looting. No murders. No robberies. No blocking roads. None of that. I think my car has been broken into twice in the two decades I’ve lived here for the change in my ashtray. The best decision I ever made was moving away from the city and into a SMALL TOWN. I now avoid large cities like the plague and will only entertain going to one for business or for brief visits with friends. You can keep those shit holes. I’ll be right here in my ‘small town’ disinterested in the beautiful piles of shit on your sidewalks or the exciting allure of the constant home invasions in your urban utopias.

So Jason Aldean is catching A LOT of shit for his new song because of the lyrics in this video. Let’s highlight some music lyrics that aren’t causing any controversy and see why that might be. Shall we? • DMX: ‘If you got a daughter older than 15, I’mma rape her/Take her on the living room floor, right there in front of you/Then ask you seriously, what you wanna do?’ • ICE CUBE: ‘So don't follow me up and down your market/ Or your little chop-suey ass will be a target/ Of the nationwide boycott/ Juice with the people, that's what the boy got/So pay respect to the Black fist/ Or we`ll burn your store right down to a crisp/ And then we`ll see ya/ Cause you can't turn the ghetto into Black Korea.’ • SADAT X: ‘Though I can freak, fly, flow, fuck up a fa#%ot, Don't understand their ways, I ain't down with gays’ • BIGGIE: ‘Then I'm dippin' up the block and I'm robbin' bitches, too/Up the herringbones and bamboos/I wouldn't give a fuck if you're pregnant/Give me the baby rings and the #1 Mom pendant’ • RICK ROSS: ‘Put Molly all in her champagne, she ain’t even know it/I took her home and I enjoyed that, she ain't even know it’ I could go on and on, but you get the idea. Spare me the fucking outrage.