Where the Music Comes From Peak position: 42 Country roots run deep, and K. Michelle just reminded the world with style, strength, and a few sites that hers are planted firmly in the soil of Memphis, Tenn.
The singer and songwriter made headlines at CMA Fest 2025 when she politely shut down an interviewer’s casual undermining during a sit-down with an American Songwriter. It all began when the host, in an offhand manner, asked Michelle to introduce herself to the audience with the aside, “You didn’t grow up here in country music.”
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And that’s when K. Michelle’s Southern fire got stoked. “You do this all the time,” she shot back, cool but sharp. “I did grow up in country music; I’m from Memphis, Tennessee. I won a scholarship for yodeling, and that’s how I went to college.”
Michelle, who has often spoken about the uphill battle she’s waging fighting her way through the country genre as a Black woman, was not about to let the moment pass. Loud and weary, she refused to let confusion be the end of it: Not just a misunderstanding, she said, but a symptom of an even larger problem.
“They told me I couldn’t sing country music because I was Black,” she added. “But it was something I had always been doing and always will. I did not fly here because I grew here.”
The clip traveled quickly, prompting discussion, anger, and support on social media. One user captured the general mood with a declarative, “CLEARED HER!”
The interviewer tried to pull back: “We just haven’t heard you on contemporary country radio,” but Michelle wasn’t finished.
“Well, you don’t hear a lot of women on contemporary radio period right now, okay,” she said. “And you don’t hear a Black one. But you will.”
A sting on the steel guitar and a round of applause might have also followed that line. Fans online were just as quick to defend her, with many wondering how one interviewing K. Michelle could not be aware of her country roots, particularly her vocal scholarship for yodeling, a fact fans have been aware of for years.
“& the interviewer interviewing K would know that IF SHE DID REAL RESEARCH ON K MICHELLE,” read another. “Even I knew about Kimbers’ yodeling vocal past!”
Some readers did not appreciate the comparison, and a number compared her scorched-earth truth-telling with that of Beyoncé’s far more measured foray into country music, as though K. Michelle were the one saying the quiet part out loud.
“lol K Michelle said all the stuff Beyoncé can’t say,” one tweet said.
Whether the interviewer’s intention was flippant or not, the exchange highlighted a problem that has plagued country music for quite some time, one that K. Michelle has no intention of letting fall by the wayside.
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