How Black women reclaimed country and Americana music in 2021

If 2020 was the kickstart of a reckoning—of country/Americana music (and, really, all of America) being forced to come to terms with its history of racism and exclusion—2021 was the year of reclamation. Even as sustainable, systemic change remains elusive, Black women, in particular, have leveraged the power of streaming platforms and social media to bridge the chasms previously carved by labels, publishers and radio. This year, as listeners clamored for playlists and show lineups that actually mirror the world around them, these women built brands and fanbases, all the while hoping to make the industry a more welcoming place for others who look like them. Our timeline, far from exhaustive, charts some of the ways it happened.

January

The folk lane that Yasmin Williams occupies—solo acoustic guitar—is often overlooked in accounts of sexism and racism in roots music, but it too has been dominated by white men for the last half-century. With the compositions on her January album Urban Driftwood, and the ways she performed and talked about them, Williams breezily intervened in those narrow notions of musical lineage. Her fingerstyle picking virtuosity entails being open to effervescent and thrillingly unconventional techniques.

, on the other hand, intervened closer to the mainstream. She started applying lessons learned through her dehumanizing experiences in the country music industry to advocacy in 2020, with the launch of her galvanizing Apple Radioand an artist fund of that same name. The first month of 2021, she announced the inaugural class of Black women artists that she wanted to amplify () and accelerated her efforts to disburse microgrants. Palmer's style of reaching out to fellow artists of color with solidarity and assistance would serve as a template for so much other informal network-building throughout the year.