Race Flap Isn't Hurting Sales for Morgan Wallen

Three weeks into Morgan Wallen's run atop the album charts, the country singer was caught on video using a racial slur. In response, radio stations and streaming playlists dropped his music. His recording company suspended him, and the Academy of Country Music said Wallen is not welcome at this year's awards show. But nothing has dislodged his album, Dangerous: The Double Album, from No.1. Overall, Rolling Stone reports, Wallen's music has never sold better. Not only is Dangerous tops on the Rolling Stone charts, his previous album, If I Know Me, is on the way up and has reached No. 10. Wallen's total sales were more than twice those of the Foo Fighters, whose album Medicine at Midnight opened at No. 2 on the Rolling Stone charts.

It's a similar story on Billboard's chart. Wallen's new album is No. 1 and his earlier one is No. 10, higher than it's ever been, with its sales up 33%. Wallen has apologized, and the episode has prompted some to reconsider racial inequity issues in the industry, per the New York Times. "The hate runs deep," Mickey Guyton posted minutes after the Wallen video surfaced. "How many passes will you continue to give?" Guyton is the only Black female country singer signed with a major recording company, per the Times. Others, including Wallen's sister Ashlyne, said the problem is "cancel culture." She posted that it "leaves no room for forgiveness and growth, in turn, leaving no opportunity for individuals who have made mistakes to learn from them." Dangerous includes a song written by Jason Isbell, who tweeted that he's sending the money he's made from it to the Nashville NAACP. (More Morgan Wallen stories.)