Country performer Morgan Wallen’s latest record Dangerous: The Double Album, has become the first record in the genre to hit seven weeks on the number one spot of the Billboard 200, despite highly publicized incident where he was caught on camera yelling a racial slur. Garth Brooks’ The Chase previously held the Billboard record for six weeks back in 1992.
Wallen is seeing this chart success despite being blacklisted from every major radio station in the country, due the racial slur incident. His sales increased by 300 percent in the week following the incident, even as his airplay dropped by 71 percent.
Wallen was also suspended indefinitely from his record label as a result of the incident and was subsequently barred from this year’s Academy of Country Music Awards. The incident’s recording shows Wallen apparently intoxicated following a night out in Nashville, where he yells the N-word to an unidentified person off-camera.
This isn’t the first time Wallen has faced controversy. Last year he was removed from a Saturday Night Live appearance after footage emerged of him drinking in Nashville while allegedly disregarding COVID-19 protocols. That same year he was also arrested on charges of disorderly conduct and public intoxication.
Despite this incident and the COVID-19 pandemic, Wallen is currently scheduled for a slew of music festival appearances and Midwest tour dates set for this summer and fall. Jason Isbell, whose song “Cover Me Up” was covered by Wallen, will be donating all of his proceeds from that cover to Nashville’s NAACP chapter.
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