Mark Allan Jackson:

When Donald Trump took the first international trip of his presidency to Saudi Arabia in May 2017, another US icon also travelled along as part of the celebration of the alliance between these two countries: the country-music star Toby Keith. For many observers, Keith was a surprise choice for an appearance in a Muslim country, as he rose to conservative prominence in the US through his post-9/11, jingoistic anthems in praise of intervention in the Middle East, such as The Taliban Song (2003) and Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue (2002, with its signature warning: ‘We’ll put a boot in your ass. / It’s the American way.’)

Perhaps Keith’s appearance at the Trump inauguration urged the Saudis to make this unusual pick, with them hoping to curry favour by appealing to the new president’s tastes – although Trump has never been a country fan. Maybe the choice acknowledged Keith’s popularity with some members of Trump’s voter base. But, for whatever reason, the singer became pegged as a kind of cultural emissary as a result of this visit. What was he representing and to whom?

Alyssa Rosenberg, writing in The Washington Post in May 2017, speculated that Keith ‘sees himself as an ambassador for a certain version of American society, for cold beers and women in crop-tops and backyard poker games and the redeeming power of Christianity’. Although these positions (and others Keith has taken) do not fit Saudi Arabia’s particular brand of conservatism, they do play well in the US – at least to some voters and listeners. But at the same time, they misrepresent the whole of what country music stands for (or against).

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