Over the past few years, an array of musicians, historians, researchers, and critics have helped upend the history of country music. They’ve brought overdue attention to the myriad, yet long-ignored contributions of Black musicians to country’s origins, stressing the way record company owners overlooked Black artists for recording sessions, or slapped bogus genre terms on the songs they did record (“race records”) to differentiate them from the similar tunes recorded by white artists. 

With all this knowledge far more well-known now than it ever has been, it was not surprising to see Shaboozey react skeptically to a piece of presenter copy at last night’s American Music Awards regurgitating the old myths that country music was originally by and for white people. 

At the AMAs, Shaboozey was on-hand to present the award for Favorite Country Duo or Group with Megan Moroney. Their presenter copy found them name-checking the winners of the major country categories at the inaugural AMAs in 1974. That year, Charley Pride won Favorite Country Male Artist, Lynn Anderson won Favorite Country Female Artist, and Favorite Country Duo or Group went to the Carter Family. Moroney’s presenter copy had her say that the Carter Family “basically invented country music.” 

This garnered a not-at-all subtle side-eye glance and a curt laugh from Shaboozey before he continued with the names of this year’s nominees. On Tuesday morning, Shaboozey addressed the matter further in a pair of posts on Twitter.

“When you uncover the true history of country music, you find a story so powerful that it cannot be erased,” he said, adding: “The real history of country music is about people coming together despite their differences, and embracing and celebrating the things that make us alike.”

Reps for Shaboozey, Moroney, and the American Music Awards did not immediately return requests for comment.

While the Carter Family are indeed country pioneers, they are also a perfect case study in the way country history has been whitewashed. Much of the Carter Family’s catalog was made up of songs that patriarch A.P. Carter collected while traveling around Appalachia. Often joining Carter on these song scouting trips was a Black guitarist named Lesley Riddle, who not only helped Carter write down and memorize the songs, but introduced him to Black musical traditions (like church music and the blues) that further influenced what became known as country music. Riddle also taught A.P.’s bandmate and sister-in-law, Maybelle Carter, his style of guitar finger-picking, which further influenced her famous “scratch” style of playing. 

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While the Carter Family have long been considered country music royalty, it was only in the Sixties that Riddle began to get his due, and in recent years that his story has become more widely known. Riddle is just one of many Black artists to play a pivotal role in country’s history, with Shaboozey also encouraging fans to seek out other key figures like Steve Tarter, Harry Gay, and DeFord Bailey. 

Others also expressed frustration with the AMAs presenter copy, including the musician Rissi Palmer, who wrote on Instagram, “Tell me you know nothing about the actual roots of Country music without telling me you don’t know the roots… like, who wrote this script? What in the Project 2025 hell is this? … Behind every founding father and mother of Country music stands a Black musician playing Black roots music, strategically hidden in the mix.”

Dom Flemons, the revered musician and historian, commented on Palmer’s post, encouraging people to seek out a video he made with the organization Black in Appalachia all about Riddle’s contributions to the Carter Family and country history.

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“The Carter [Family] and [record producer] Ralph Peer deserve the credit for their work to establish country music as a genre,” Flemons wrote. “Lesley Riddle was never an established artist which is why he fell to the wayside in the early years… It took many years for his story to come out into the public.”

(The American Music Awards is produced by Dick Clark Productions, which is owned by Rolling Stone’s parent company Penske Media Corporation in partnership with the holding company Eldridge.)