Toby Keith // Current

Canadian Critic Sucks

What does Filmore Mescalito Holmes know about Kings of Leon? Our Critc Critic, Peter Grumbine returns to the Daily Fix with words... more

DailyFix
added this

Toby Keith praises Obama, says he's a Democrat

Barack Obama is getting praise from Nashville, courtesy of one big, patriotic country star. Toby Keith, perhaps best known to... more

rabidlemur
added this

Toby Keith: Obama acts white to win

Now, Keith has trained his sights on Barack Obama, attacking him in racially tinged language that startled even the notoriously... more

AreOh
added this

Country star Toby Keith promotes "pro-lynching" song

With all the controversy regarding rappers lyrics going on right now, from Nas' protest of Fox News to the Ludacris misguided pro-Obama song, Politics as Usual, the media has been neglecting the negative lyrics of country music’s most popular star.

Singer Toby Keith is promoting a movie called Beer for my Horses, based on a song of the same name. The song promotes lynching criminals and vigilantism. In the song, Keith says

Grandpappy told my pappy, back in my day, son
A man had to answer for the wicked that he done
Take all the rope in Texas
Find a tall oak tree, round up all of them bad boys
Hang them high in the street for all the people to see that

During Keith’s grandpappy’s day, 3,437 black people were lynched. Most of the ‘bad boys’ who were lynched by vigilante white mobs were in fact blacks who weren’t given a chance to defend themselves from the charges brought against them. Charges could include anything from theft, rape and whistling at a white woman and the punishment was always death. Most lynchings involved some kind of interaction with a white woman whether it was consensual or forced sex or ‘inappropriate’ actions. While white people charged with a crime would have the right to trial by jury, black people had to face the white mob as judge, jury and executioner through lynching.

While Keith does not explicitly call for the lynching of black people, he talks about ‘gangsters’ and ‘crime in the streets’ which are phrases often connected to urban African Americans. In the trailer for his movie, Beer for my Horses, the enemies are all dark skinned stereotypical Mexicans. Images and symbolism of lynchings are very disturbing and offensive to African Americans as it brings back a dark part of their history.

Fox News’ Sean Hannity, who has been extremely critical of negative rap lyrics, has been a big supporter of Toby Keith. Hannity often used Keith’s song, ‘Courtesy of the Red White and Blue,’ a song that glorified bombing Afghanistan, as a theme song for his radio program and many other right-wingers had adopted it as a theme song on talk radio. Keith has also been very active performing overseas for military troops.

Will the right wing republicans at Fox News and conservative talk radio and the military be as quick to denounce Toby Keith, as Obama was to denounce Ludacris? Calls to Sean Hannity’s office at Fox were not returned.With all the controversy regarding rappers lyrics going on right now, from Nas' protest of Fox News to the Ludacris misguided... more