By 
In fact, from the very beginning.
The country group Lady Antebellum made headlines recently when they announced they would be changing their name from Lady Antebellum to “Lady A” in recognition of the fact that Antebellum, as a word, is steeped in racist and specifically pre-civil-war ugliness.
However, as it turns out, “Lady A” was not their name to take — A Black Blues singer named Anita White has been using the name for 20+ years. So what does the band formerly known as Lady Antebellum do? They sue White for the name citing that “they have held the copyright for a decade” and asking for pity.
This entire debacle, that has been playing itself out in the media cycle within the entertainment industry, brings me back to the main point that I will reiterate once and forever:
Lady Antebellum has always sucked.
Antebellum has Latin roots and if you break it down, ante means ‘pre’ or ‘before’, and bellum means ‘war’.
Now for the added context. One of its earliest appearances was in the Civil War diary of Mary Boykin Chesnut, which was later published as a book. The word was used by her, and others until this day to describe the pre-Civil War South. Specifically in reference to the culture of the pre-war South, which at the time, was the culture of chattel slavery.
Antebellum as a word in our cultural lexicon came back into wider use around the 1950s and 60s — the same time that angry, white Southerners were erecting monuments to “preserve their culture” in a backlash against the Civil Rights movement. It’s hardly surprising that the usage of the word so closely linked to the pre-war South started coming back into vogue when southern white fragility reached one of its many peaks.
The word’s popularity truly took off post-Civil Rights and is in wider usage today than ever, thanks to the negationist propaganda of the Lost Cause of the Confederacy.
Lost Cause ideology is a whole can of worms centered primarily around the idea that the Confederacy was fighting a for ‘states rights’ which is, of course, total nonsense. Lost Cause gained more mainstream traction post-Civil Rights and with its popular ideology (a nice place for White Supremacy to hide in plain sight), the use of the word Antebellum came with it.
So why choose a name knowing the history of it? And even if you “didn’t know,” why continue to use it after being informed?
The band claims that it was “arbitrary” and ‘came’ to them during a photoshoot at a plantation (NO WAY!) or as they put it “An Antebellum house” (SUPER YIKES). “one of us said the word and we all kind of stopped and said, man, that could be a name” The band also remarked about the plantation, “Man that’s a beautiful Antebellum house, and that’s cool, maybe there’s a haunted ghost or something in there like Lady Antebellum.”
Yeah, folks, there are ghosts. The ghosts of THOUSANDS of enslaved Black people.
They roll with the name, despite the fact that it’s always been controversial and, even in the early days of the band, widely criticized. But still no pushback from their audience because either a) they know, and don’t care or b) they don’t know and don’t care to find out.
This same logic must apply to the band themselves. The band has either always known that the name is racist and just not cared or never really bothered to give it much thought. The argument for ‘ignorance’ is weak at best, judging by the sheer amount of criticism it garnered from multiple critics and writers over the last 14 years. Even if that was the case, it would showcase a galactic amount of privilege to argue that they never bothered to do a simple Google search.
Then 2020 Happened
Enter George Floyd and overall declining album sales for the band, creating a perfect storm of performative allyship thrusting them back into the headlines. Their antiquated personas shine brighter than ever while filing suit against a Black Blues Singer from Seattle during America’s greatest upheaval of racial policy and culture since the Civil Rights movement.
On top of which, their music is trite, grating and, worst of all, boring.
“Not wanting a name that is a reminder to many Black folks of how so much was taken from us: our freedom, languages, families, and even our names makes sense,” Anita said speaking to the Rolling Stone. “However, to do so by taking the name on which I, a Black woman, have built my career in the music industry for over 20 years is ironic … There’s such white privilege that when a person of color, an indigenous person, or a Black person calls them on their crap, they’re so offended by it that they don’t see. They’ve been allowed to have that privilege,”
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Performative allyship isn’t new, and I’m sure the band formerly known as Lady Antebellum would have sued the pants off of anyone, regardless of ethnicity, that stood in their way of absolving themselves as fast as possible from their racist name. It is cosmically hilarious however they thought this would look good, from any angle, and in any context.
For us (clearly) it won’t be difficult to move on from them. The Real Lady A deserves better. Lady Antebellum has basically taken over the name “Lady A” digitally and pushed anything related to Anita White to the bottom of the search results.
When trying to find some of Anita White’s work it was only after being stuck in a menagerie of 10+-year-old tour vlogs by Lady Antebellum did we find some of her work on YouTube. After digging in, we have to say that she is genuinely bad-ass. Take a listen and subscribe to her YouTube channel. As of this writing, she has just over 500 subscribers. That number should be higher.
The positive note that we can leave you with is that is this is a demonstration of how protesting can be effective. Make no mistake though, just because Lady Antebellum has “changed” doesn’t mean their demo has. It’s more than certain that plenty of their fans still buy into and wistfully yearn for the Antebellum period.
Until they release an album called “We’re sorry about our old name, we realize now the South committed treason by starting a civil war because they wanted to own people and no other reason in particular”, then it’s a hard pass from us. Even then, their music is inexcusable so we aren’t holding out much hope.
What we are on about here isn’t unreasonable and if you care about BIPOC at all, you shouldn’t want to associate with a name that harkens back to one of the worst times in American history and continues to perpetuate the glorification of chattel slavery. If you want to associate with that name, then you suck. There is no way around it.
Follow The Real Lady A on all social networks, and get her in the studio with the Dap-Kings already. We will be holding out hope for that collaboration someday.
