The idea of folk music being something that is disconnected from commerce is such an oxymoron. They would go to people who were disenfranchised and hadn’t been discovered and loved them for those reasons. Then, they’d make them rich and famous which completely ruins their original appeal. It’s like when annoying hipsters love small bands and want them to be successful, but when they finally gain success they complain that the band ‘sold out’ or became too mainstream. This is something that happens so often.

I also think it’s kind of rich that country music has so many elements that come from African music and Hawaiian music. I’m from Kentucky, so bluegrass and country is something that I was very familiar with before I actually started to listen to stuff that didn’t make me want to shoot myself and I had never known that those sounds were adopted by people who were most likely racist toward the people they were trying to sound like.

I HATED the song about the ‘dark skinned Filipino’ that the stupid cowboy sang. I absolutely hated it. I am Korean and I’m from Boone County Kentucky. Me and my family were the on ly not white people I knew for a while, and we were definitely the most ‘exotic’ things many of those people had seen. They made a big deal about it. I don’t look very Asian, so I don’t really have to deal with this, but my sister definitely has to deal with a lot of really creepy people basically fetishizing her because she is Asian. It is something that a lot of Asian women are subjected to; Asian women are usually characterized as subservient and exotic women that are easy to get. This song was so annoying. I found it to be racist and insensitive and it wasn’t even catchy. It basically portrayed the woman as an object. He may have loved her, but he didn’t describe her as a person.