Mickey Guyton on debut country album 'Remember Her Name'

Ahead of the release of her highly anticipated debut album Remember Her Name, out September 24, Mickey Guyton talks to Yahoo Entertainment about navigating the country music world as a Black woman.

Video transcript

LYNDSEY PARKER: So it's a long time coming, and it must just in general feel really great to finally have your debut album out there.

MICKEY GUYTON: Yes, it has been a long time coming. The fact that I'm here is a miracle. 2019, I was ready to stop it all.

LYNDSEY PARKER: Really?

MICKEY GUYTON: 100%. Sometimes on a daily, I'm like, why did I choose to do this? Like, this makes no sense.

I remember crying to my husband, mad at him because he would never let me quit. He kept saying because you need to be here. If you're not there, who you're-- like, every Black girl that wants to sing country music, that dream is gone if you're not there.

And I was like, fine. And I'm so glad I didn't stop. I truly believe it had to happen exactly now.

I mentally was not ready back five years ago. There is a grounding. That has happened to me, and had I have-- it happen sooner, I might be strung out somewhere unwell, to be honest.

LYNDSEY PARKER: Really? What do you do-- you mean that literally?

MICKEY GUYTON: I do, absolutely. I think I could have been under a lot of influences. It was really hard.

There were a lot-- for a long time, I ran away from everything that makes me different. I ran away from my Blackness. I ran away from everything that makes me different because I was trying so hard to fit into this tiny box that I just did not fit in.

I just didn't. And in doing so, all the events in Nashville and me trying to prove that I'm this girl next door great time kind of a person, that was a very toxic environment. What do you do when you cope with things?

It was me drinking wine. Like, that was definitely something that helped cope with where I was. And for a long time, I was in a pretty dark space in that sense.

LYNDSEY PARKER: I'm sorry to hear that, but obviously, you are in a better place now. Did you have an epiphany in your career or in your personal life or both that sort of got you out of that place?

MICKEY GUYTON: Yeah, absolutely. So back in about 2018-- either it was 2017 or 2018-- I was with my husband. We were sitting at a bar having an extremely honest conversation.

I just asked him. I said, why do you think country music isn't working for me? And that's when he said because you're running away from everything that makes you different. And he said, why aren't you singing country songs from your perspective?

Why are you trying to write somebody else's perspective of country music? That's not your life. That's not your perspective.

And it was like fireworks and light bulbs and everything all at once. And I was like, wow, why am I not doing that? And so I really started writing my honest to God's truth. Whether it was going to make someone feel uncomfortable or not, I was just going to write about that because I felt like it was important. It was kind of cathartic and therapy for me.

LYNDSEY PARKER: I definitely want to ask about the latest single, "I Love My Hair."

MICKEY GUYTON: So I was inspired by two different situations. There is one situation where I saw a video on YouTube of this little girl, this little Black girl, being sent home from school because the school said that her hair was distracting. For me, that was just so triggering within my own world and how I felt about my own hair.

And of course, I wear extensions and all of that for the look for entertainment purposes. But the struggle for women, especially Black women-- our hair is so different from everybody else's. And there's so many complexes that we have and growing up self-hating because society has made us feel like we don't belong. And that was something that I really wanted to write about and write a song, a love song, to our hair no matter what it looks like and for you to love that no matter what it looks like and no matter what you choose to do with your hair that you love it.

LYNDSEY PARKER: Is that something you struggle with in the industry? All women do, obviously, but I would imagine especially as a woman of color in country, it would be on another level-- in terms of styling, how you should present yourself, how you should dress, what you should look like in your photos and videos.

MICKEY GUYTON: All of that. Girl, speaking my language right now. Yes, man. And it also brought me to my own struggles with my own hair within this industry.

There are so many times that I was on a red carpet that I didn't like the way I looked because I would ask people. I need to make sure someone knows how to do Black hair, how to do a Black person's makeup. When it came to me getting my hair done, living in Nashville, when I did the ACMs with-- and the same with Chrissy Metz a few years ago-- I literally, like the day before the ACM Awards, I had to get in my car at 5:00 AM, drive all the way to Atlanta for my hair appointment, get my hair done, get my lace front wig put on, the whole thing, then get in my car and drive all the way back to Nashville to pack my bag and get on a flight to go to Vegas because I didn't have anybody that knew how to do my hair.

LYNDSEY PARKER: How long a drive is that?

MICKEY GUYTON: 3 and 1/2, 4 hours.

LYNDSEY PARKER: One way?

MICKEY GUYTON: One way.

LYNDSEY PARKER: So you drove seven, eight hours just to have someone do your hair right.

MICKEY GUYTON: That was the only way that I could even get someone to do my hair and feel confident in it.

LYNDSEY PARKER: For so long, and it's still a problem, that there are so few Black artists in country music. Does it ever lead-- you know the term, to use a common term, the emotional labor of it, does it ever get to you?

MICKEY GUYTON: Yes, it is really, really hard. There are fans that have been not so kind.

LYNDSEY PARKER: To you?

MICKEY GUYTON: Yeah, especially me.

LYNDSEY PARKER: Hm.

MICKEY GUYTON: You just go on any of the platforms like CMT, CMA, whatever. And they post a picture of me and just look at the comments. And I'd be lying if I was like, oh, you brush it off and everything's OK.

And the cyberbullying is on a whole different level of-- I've never seen anything like it. I've started making a conscious effort to really not be on social media as much. It's actually really good for anybody's health, everybody's health.

Antidepressants have helped me tremendously. I was in a really bad space when I had gotten a lot of that hate. I was nine months pregnant when I got a lot of that hate.

So tap-- you know, put on top of that the hormones that you're dealing with on top of a new baby. It's a lot. Like, it is a lot.

LYNDSEY PARKER: Of course, I have to ask about the title track, "Remember Her Name." I assume it was written about, well, Breonna Taylor but maybe some other events that were going on in 2020.

MICKEY GUYTON: It was definitely inspired by that because every time I would see Breonna Taylor's name, it would be, like, say her name. Remember her name. And that was something that just-- that title rang so true for me.

I think a lot of women's stories, when we start off our careers and start out in life, we're so certain about what we want to do. We're so certain that this is our path. And then life gets in the way and so often can shatter everything that we knew about ourselves.

But it's important to remember that that girl is still there. Like, the girl I am now, the woman I am now, I was on my way to that when I first moved to Nashville. I was writing really progressive, really cool songs.

And they were stopped at the door because nobody wanted that. And I should have stuck with that person. And now she's back. And that's what "Remember Her Name" is about.