NASHVILLE, Tennessee (AP) – Country star Luke Combs has apologized for appearing with Confederate flags, saying he is now aware of how painful this flag is.
Combs approached the images during a conversation with singer Maren Morris on Wednesday during a panel for broadcasters on responsibility in country music. It came weeks after another top star in the country, Morgan Wallen, was removed from radio stations and suspended from his label after being caught on video using a racial insult.
Panel moderator and NPR music critic Ann Powers asked Combs about those images during a Q&A for Country Radio Seminar, an annual conference of country broadcasters, which took place online this year.
“There is no excuse for these images,” said Combs, a 30-year-old North Carolina singer who has had two cross-country albums and several successful country songs.
Combs said the pictures were from seven or eight years ago, and as a younger man, he didn’t understand what that flag meant.
“And as I grew up in my time as an artist and as the world has changed drastically in the last five to seven years, I’m now aware of how painful that image can be for someone else,” Combs said. “I would never want to be associated with something that hurts someone so much.”
He said that he is now addressing old images because he wanted to show as a very visible country artist that people can change and learn from their mistakes. He also wanted to encourage more people in the country’s music industry to have those tough conversations.
The genre had a racial bias even before Wallen’s actions, but top artists were often reluctant to discuss race, both in the present and in the past.
“I’m trying to learn. I’m trying to improve,” Combs said.
Morris also spoke of the Confederate flag, saying that as a native Texan, she did not fully understand the history and context of the flag other than just “southern pride” until she was a teenager.
She said that seeing that the flag flown at country music festivals makes her not want to sing at these festivals and urged artists in the country to demand the removal of these flags.
She is also one of the few artists in the country public criticism Wallen’s actions on social media and said he had some side effects, but it was minimal compared to what black people regularly face.
“I appreciate that Morgan said ‘give up my defense’ to his fans, because it’s unfair. He knows that. We know that, “said Morris. “All we can do, so there is no elephant in the room, is to say out loud that you are holding our colleagues accountable. I don’t care if it’s weird to be sitting next to you at the next awards show. ”