112: Black Country Excellence Lives in Houston, in Beyoncé & with LaChachere Music Group

Country music is often referred to as the quintessential American music – and yet the contributions and influences of Black Americans is often erased and ignored. A prime example: Members of the Carter family were among country music’s first big stars, producing some of the earliest commercial recordings in the 1920s. While the Carters are celebrated to this day, few know the name of Lesley Riddle, a Black musician who was instrumental in developing the Carter sound. Even the banjo – an instrument most associated with Appalachia where A.P. Carter and Lesley Riddle researched folk music – has had its African roots neglected over time. The rich cultural legacy of this American genre is only recently getting reexamined as African Americans and other communities of color are telling their own stories and histories of contribution to the origins of country music. 

  

As Houston’s own Beyoncé drops her most recent album, “Cowboy Carter”, some are saying that an artist mostly linked to R&B and hip-hop has no business on the country charts or airwaves. But the owners of a new music enterprise in Houston would respectfully disagree as they live the country life right here in Space City.

 

Join us as I SEE U’s Eddie Robinson chats with the founders of LaChachere Music Group (LMG), a premiere country music entertainment company based in Houston and Nashville. Owners Dennis Chachere and Ahsaki LaFrance-Chachere stop by our Third Ward studios — just blocks away from Queen Bey’s childhood home. We’ll dive deep into why there remains tension in country music spaces when Black artists desire the spotlight — a notion Beyoncé modestly referr