Back in August, Jelly Roll made an appearance on the Flagrant podcast, hosted by comedian Andrew Schulz. They discussed Jelly Roll’s rise to fame and why he hit such a meteoric rise.
The Son Of A Sinner singer expresses his opinions on the country music scene today, revealing how fortunate he feels to have entered that space at the time that he did. He discusses how he believes country music is reaching a point of popularity that it hasn’t experienced in over thirty years.
“I came into country music right on the tip of country music becoming the coolest genre on Earth for the first time since ’92.”
The early 90’s was the prime of artists like Alan Jackson, George Strait, and Garth Brooks, as well as the rise for others such as Brooks and Dunn and Toby Keith– a pretty darn cool time for country music.
Jelly Roll’s thoughts are very on-par with the thoughts of many country artists today. His Save Me collaborator, Lainey Wilson, has been vocal about her opinion as well, also calling country “cooler than it’s ever been.”
The evolution of the genre has also come with low points- Jelly Roll points out that country music has been cast aside and neglected at times. He jokingly compares this neglect to the band Nickelback, whom he has performed with in the past and has, interestingly enough, had a bit of a resurgence of their own.
“Thirty (expletive) years have passed where country music has been treated like Nickelback.”
Jelly Roll is not saying this with hate toward Nickelback, but rather out of love. He clearly feels they got, in a way, looked past in the music scene (despite their sales) and has noticed a similar pattern in country music. Nowadays, the narrative has changed and it has become one of the front-running genres in all of music. The whole culture surrounding it has shifted in many ways, as well. Jelly Roll points this out in their conversation:
“You were talking about country bars?”
Jelly Roll mentions, queuing one of the hosts to share something they had clearly discussed off camera. The host said:
“I was in Toronto and LA the same week- in both cities the hottest new bar is a country bar… It’s everyone. It’s everyone that would’ve been at a hip hop bar or a house bar.”
He wanted the host to share his experience because it further shows this shift in the outlook of this genre that was, for a long time, cast aside in many ways.
Jelly Roll’s true gratitude and passion are front and center, as he displays a sense of pride for the community he’s grown to become a part of. Not to mention, he stands as a pivotal piece of this rise to popularity in country music, representing a fascinating sound that is quite different than much of what has been produced in the last few decades.
Check the clip out here: