“We all feel like we are people who care about things like police brutality, but as this movement has come forward, I’ve had to really think about the things that I don’t understand,” The Chicks multi-instrumentalist Emily Strayer tells Apple Music about the recent Black Lives Matter protests. “I’m trying to understand it as a white person, trying to take the personal responsibility to listen.” On their spirited At Home With conversation with Zane Lowe, the veteran country-pop act talks about their role in fighting for economic and racial equality, meeting Beyoncé at the CMA Awards, and how they can’t trust anyone who doesn’t like The Beatles. Fresh off the release of their first album in 14 years, Gaslighter, The Chicks also share an exclusive Apple Music playlist—a collection of protest music that’s keeping them going while on lockdown. Check out some of their picks below.
H.E.R., “I Can’t Breathe”
Emily Strayer: “I've seen H.E.R. play, but it was on one of the benefits that was done via Zoom. I saw her on there and I was just like, ‘She is the most amazing artist.’ I looked up everything she had ever done and started watching her. But she's next-level, about to come up and take over.”
Johnny Cash, “Man in Black”
Martie Maguire: “He's just telling it damn straight—he is a person of the people. I think there's so many preconceived notions about country songs and what they meant in the past and if they were protest songs. I think people assume that because he's old country, he felt a certain way maybe politically or about the world. But no: He was a complete liberal, and that song is really an amazing look into who he was.”
Childish Gambino, “This Is America”
Natalie Maines: “One of my sons brought his laptop in and had me watch the video. And yeah, I was blown away. No pun intended. There's a lot of blowing away in that. It's really hard to get a really moving video, or visual, or something that takes you by surprise or really has an impact. I got choked up watching that video for the first time, for sure. It was powerful.”
The Chicks, formerly known as Dixie Chicks, started out with a different lineup and a more old-school sound before reinventing themselves as a pop-savvy, unfailingly classy trio and becoming an enormous country-pop crossover success. They scored their biggest hits in the late '90s and early '00s, but fell out of favor with their base after a political comment by Natalie Maines on the eve of the Iraq War stirred up controversy in the country community. After 2006's defiant Taking the Long Way, they went on a long hiatus, though Maines has released solo material and sisters Martie Maguire and Emily Robison teamed as duo Court Yard Hounds.