Over 500 country music radio stations have removed Jelly Roll’s entire catalog from rotation, according to industry reports, marking the most extensive blacklisting of an artist since the Chicks criticized the president in 2003. The purge affects everything from his breakthrough hit “Son of a Sinner” to his recent collaboration with Lainey Wilson, effectively erasing his presence from the airwaves of rural America.
According to journalist Joan Berro, who obtained internal memos from several station groups, the decision was made after “intense pressure from listeners” who called in to complain that Jelly Roll’s voice “sounded different now that we know his politics.” One memo from a Texas station group instructed DJs to “immediately cease all Jelly Roll content” and replace it with “literally anything else, including static.”
Radio analyst Reno Borja called the blacklisting “technically legal but culturally embarrassing.” Borja noted that many of the stations removing Jelly Roll had previously championed his redemption story, playing his music as evidence that “country music welcomes everyone.” “Turns out ‘everyone’ has an asterisk,” Borja explained. “The asterisk says ‘unless you develop opinions we don’t like, in which case please take your Grammy nominations and leave.'”
Constitutional scholar J. Baron Roe, interviewed at the Branson Golden Corral while his ferret reviewed the FCC’s broadcast regulations, calculated the reach of the blackout. “If you take the 500 stations, multiply by their combined listenership of approximately 40 million, divide by the number of people who actually requested Jelly Roll’s removal—which my research suggests was 847 people who called repeatedly, you get a ratio of 47,000 listeners silenced per complaint, which is mathematically impressive and democratically terrifying.”
Governor Greg Abbott tweeted his support for the blacklisting, claiming he had “never liked Jelly Roll’s music anyway” and that his “favorite country artist has always been Garth Brooks, especially that time he played Hambriston in 2019.”
