Six seconds of news footage of 2020 Black Lives Matter protests was excised from the country singer’s controversial music video
Jason Aldean’s polarizing “Try That in a Small Town” video was recently re-uploaded to YouTube without some of the protest footage that originally helped make the music video so controversial.
According to the Washington Post, two instances of Black Lives Matter protests, culled from a 2020 news clip from Fox 5 Atlanta, were removed from the clip, resulting in a “Try That” video that’s six seconds shorter than its predecessor.
At one point in the original video, the Fox 5 Atlanta footage was projected onto the Columbia, Tennessee, courthouse in front of which Aldean performs in the video. (The courthouse was the site of a 1927 lynching.) The backlash over the filming location and the song’s message at large forced the singer to make a statement saying his video, which was removed from CMT, wasn’t “pro-lynching.”
It’s unclear why the Fox 5 Atlanta footage was removed — the “Try That in a Small Town” video still features other protest footage, including some from Canada — but it could likely be a rights issue rather than Aldean’s attempt to lower the volume on the controversy, something he’s stated publicly he has no intention of doing.
The “Try That” video was also edited to remove the original version’s denouement highlighting serene images of rural life. Tacklebox Films, the company that produced the video, didn’t respond to Rolling Stone‘s request for comment.
Despite being months old, “Try That in a Small Town” has emerged as a new right-wing anthem in the aftermath of the video’s release, with conservatives attempting to catapult the track to Number One on last week’s Hot 100; the single ultimately crept up to Number Two, with Jung Kook and Latto’s “Seven” thwarting Aldean’s bid for the top spot.