War & Treaty Speaks Out on Racist Incident at Austin Festival

The war & Treaty has spent the last year gracing award show stages, racking up Grammy nominations, and even landing their first-ever platinum single. But for artists of color in the country and Americana space, success and recognition doesn’t mean escaping the litany of microaggressions and racist biases embedded in these music industry spaces.

Last weekend, before performing at the Coca-Cola Sips & Sounds festival in Austin, the couple witnessed a surprising sight in their dressing room: a cotton plant. The plant was a simple green room decoration, but in a recent interview with The Hollywood Reporter, The duo discussed how the Factory represented a larger issue of predominantly white spaces in the industry failing to make artists of color feel welcome or safe.

“We hesitated to speak out about this incident,” the band said on Instagram after the article was published. “Ultimately, we knew this issue was bigger than us.”

In the interview with THRMichael and Tanya Trotter detailed the cycle of emotions they were forced to feel after encountering the cotton plant.

“I felt anger,” said Michael, a veteran. “I felt disrespect. I felt sadness. Not just because of what this plant represents to people who look like me, but also to myself, because I am a son of this country.”

For Tanya, the daughter of a sharecropper, the room’s careless decoration is a dark reminder of her family’s past. “It’s not my place to explain to anyone what cotton is and what it represents in this country,” she said. “It just shouldn’t be happening.”

It was not immediately clear that of the 10 main stage acts at the two-day music festival, War & Treaty were the only non-white acts among a lineup of white bands performing blues, soul and rap. A representative for Coca-Cola Sips & Sounds Festival did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Rolling stoneRequest for comment from.

The decision to speak out weighed on the band, now signed to a major label, who have built a reputation (once they tried to shed it) as feel-good cultural bridge builders since their 2018 debut. Healing Tide“We’re not the kumbaya cats that people want to paint us,” Trotter said. Rolling stone in 2020. “We wanted to intentionally focus on healing with Healing Tidebut we may have given the wrong impression by saying that we are the healers… We are the most promising cats.

Most recently, the band released their latest single, “Called You By Your Name,” a bluesy rave track that they performed last month at CMA Fest.