Mickey Guyton – ‘A Little Black Girl from Texas'

Singer Mickey Guyton is blazing a trail for country music to embrace more artists of color. It’s taken 10 years of hard work and detours for her to break through

- By David Chiu

Mickey Guyton is proof that good things come to those who wait. After years of going through what she describes now as the “Nashville hamster wheel,” the Texas-born country music singer has become a breakout star following the 2020 release of her much-talked-about single “Black Like Me,” a powerful commentary about being a Black person in America. For that song, Guyton became the first Black female artist to be nominated in the Grammy category of Best Country Solo Performance; she also performed “Black Like Me” at the ceremony this March. A month later, she co-hosted the Academy of Country Music Awards with Keith Urban. Most recently, Guyton received a nomination for New Artist of the Year from the Country Music Association (CMA) Awards, which will be held on November 10 in Nashville. That nomination is ironic given how Guyton has been on a record label for a decade now.

“It’s so crazy because it’s all amazing,” Guyton, 38, tells Newsweek about the belated attention. “But we’re still kind of stuck inside. You get on these highs and then it’s over and you’re like, ‘Okay, back into my cubby hole now.’ That’s why I’m able to keep such a chill approach to it because the pandemic has been so interesting. And I have a baby who kind of tops everything that I’ve done. It’s very humbling.”

This September, Guyton finally released her much-anticipated debut full-length record