Kacey Musgraves Speaks Out on Diversity at the 2019 ACM Awards

After taking home trophies in the category of Female Vocalist of the Year and Album of the Year at the 2019 ACM Awards, Kacey Musgraves reflected that a willingness to pursue a different sound ultimately caused her winning album, Golden Hour, to earn critical acclaim and fan praise alike. Backstage, she went on to say that she hopes that country music is moving towards embracing an even greater diversity amongst its artists.

Musgraves acknowledged that there was reason to be hopeful. "I think that the antennas are definitely up and listening when it comes to more equality in this genre," she told The Boot and other media outlets. Still, she adds, there is much work to be done.

"I hope to see it turn in some other ways towards some other avenues of equality, such as including more country artists and songwriters of color or, you know, our friends from the LGTBQ community," the singer goes on to say. She adds that while it's important to her to see women in country music achieve equal recognition, the lack of representation for female country artists is just one piece of a much broader inequality.

"I think there is a lot more work to be done in the equality department than just gender," Musgraves concludes. "That is a blip on the scale, really."

Kacey Musgraves at 2019 ACMs: Equality for Female Artists is Just One Piece of the Puzzle