Morgan Wallen isn’t the best horse to hitch your cart to at the moment. He is fresh off a career-altering controversy, having been filmed using a racial slur and subsequently had his contract with his label suspended. Still, the drama hasn’t yet had a measurable impact on Wallen’s new release, Dangerous: The Double Album, which is currently on top of the charts. On the album, Wallen covers Jason Isbell’s 2013 song “Cover Me Up,” and now Isbell is using that fact to his advantage.
A couple days ago, the AP Entertainment Twitter account tweeted, “Fans of Morgan Wallen are buying up the country star’s latest album after a video showed him shouting a racial slur last week. His ‘Dangerous: The Double Album’ spent a fourth week at the top of Billboard’s all-genre chart.” In response, Jason Isbell wrote today, “So… A portion of this money goes to me, since I wrote ‘Cover Me Up.’ I’ve decided to donate everything I’ve made so far from this album to the Nashville chapter of the @NAACP. Thanks for helping out a good cause, folks.”
So… A portion of this money goes to me, since I wrote ‘Cover Me Up.’ I’ve decided to donate everything I’ve made so far from this album to the Nashville chapter of the @NAACP. Thanks for helping out a good cause, folks. https://t.co/Ch3FlDBmJf
— Jason Isbell (@JasonIsbell) February 10, 2021
Jason Isbell was among the artists who shared their thoughts about Wallen in light of the controversy, tweeting recently, “Wallen’s behavior is disgusting and horrifying. I think this is an opportunity for the country music industry to give that spot to somebody who deserves it, and there are lots of black artists who deserve it.”