Throughout his live performance on Friday night time (July 21) in St. Louis, Cody Johnson let his ideas be identified in regards to the controversy surrounding Jason Aldean‘s newest track and video, “Try That in a Small Town,” which was faraway from rotation by CMT earlier within the week.

Graham Allen, host of the Expensive America podcast, posted a video of “Til ‘You Can’t” hitmaker Johnson coming to Aldean’s protection throughout the present at St. Louis’ Chaifetz Enviornment.

“We live in a time where everyone gets p—-ed off at Jason Aldean for putting out a song,” Johnson mentioned, including, “If you’re videoing this, and Jason Aldean if you’re seeing this video, you keep it up, brother. You do you, boo boo.”

Johnson went on to notice his interpretation of the track as a patriotic one, saying, “If being patriotic makes you an outlaw, then by God, I’ll be an outlaw.”

Artists together with Travis Tritt, John Wealthy and Lee Greenwood have spoken out in protection of Aldean, whereas Aldean’s labelmate Blanco Brown defended Aldean, however emphasised that he strongly disagreed with the track itself. Artists comparable to Jason Isbell, Adeem the Artist, Margo Value and Sheryl Crow have slammed each the track and Aldean.

Aldean launched “Try That in a Small Town” in Might, and carried out it throughout his Nissan Stadium set at CMA Fest in June. Nevertheless, the video for the track was launched final week; the clip and the track rapidly started to attract criticism on social media from commenters who known as the track racist and pro-gun. Commenters additionally famous the placement of the video, which was filmed on the Maury County courthouse in Columbia, Tenn. — the identical location the place an 18-year-old Black man, Henry Choate, was lynched in 1927. CMT pulled the video from its rotation on Tuesday (July 18), a transfer that sparked each reward and backlash on social media.

Along with releasing an announcement in regards to the controversy earlier within the week, Aldean additionally spoke out in a prolonged speech throughout his personal live performance on Friday night time in Cincinnati, Ohio.

“It’s been a long week and I’ve seen a lot of stuff suggesting I’m this, suggesting I’m that,” Aldean informed the gang in a fan-captured video. “I feel like everybody’s entitled to their opinion. You can think something all you want to, it doesn’t mean it’s true. What I am is a proud American. I’m proud to be from here. I love our country. I want to see it restored to what it once was before all this bulls— started happening to us. I love my country, I love my family, and I will do anything to protect that, I can tell you that right now, he said, as the crowd began to chant “USA! USA!”

He additionally added, “You guys know how it is this day and age, cancel culture… This day and age, if people don’t like what you say, they try to make sure they can cancel you, which means try to ruin your life. Ruin everything. One thing I saw this week was a bunch of country music fans that can see through a lot of the bullshit. I saw country music fans rally like I’ve never seen before and it was pretty badass, I gotta say. Thank you guys so much. I know a lot of you guys grew up like I did. You kind of have the same values, the same principles that I have, which is we want to take our kids to a movie and not worry about some asshole coming in there shooting up the theater.”

Earlier than launching into “Try That in a Small Town,” Aldean informed the gang, “So somebody asked me, ‘Hey man, you think you’re going to play this song tonight?’ The answer was simple. The people have spoken and you guys spoke very, very loudly this week.”

After the controversy erupted, Aldean’s gross sales and streams have surged, in response to preliminary studies from Luminate, and the video has now earned 14 million views on YouTube.