Amid Continued Jelly Roll Praise, N-Word Incident Goes Unreported
Jelly Roll has evolved into not only one of the most successful and lauded entertainers in the country music sphere at the moment, but into an American cultural icon and institution, recognized across cultural and institutional divides.
If it isn’t for his music with its pop sensibilities that cast a wide net, it’s been Jelly Roll’s story of redemption that has compelled so many in the United States and beyond to become Jelly Roll believers. That’s how a man with excessive face tattoos and a felonious past became someone that even your Christian mother strongly approves of.
Despite his list of previous felonies, or his overindulgences of the past, over the last few months Jelly Roll has evolved even further to be invited to participate in some of America’s topmost cultural institutions. We’re not just talking about his prominent appearances on WWE wrestling recently, endearing the entertainer to an even wider audience beyond the world of music. On July 16th and 17th, Jelly Roll hosted Jimmy Kimmel Live! while Kimmel was on vacation. Jelly Roll is quickly becoming like a Ryan Seacrest character in American culture.
If it feels like Jelly Roll is everywhere, it’s because he is, especially since he’s been a favorite in media and beyond, ingratiating himself by his fiery acceptance speeches at award shows, and from the way his sound and image embody what many outside of country music believe to be what country music needs to “evolve.” Puff piece-style human interest stories on Jelly Roll and his wife Bunnie XO are daily occurrences.
But through this rehabilitation of the Jelly Roll image, it’s fair to question if enough scrutiny has been brought to make sure Jelly Roll the man has properly reconciled with his past, and to ask why performers with much less shadier histories face much greater scrutiny. It’s also fair to ask if the media is outright shielding Jelly Roll from criticism that would otherwise inspire outright cancellation campaigns against other performers.
For example, it probably shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone that Jelly Roll has been captured on video using the N-word multiple times given his country rap past. In fact, this video evidence has been floating out there for many months, and has even gone viral on Reddit and other social media threads multiple times. Yet the media seems to either refuse to address it, or be so blind or soft to the Jelly Roll beat, it’s gone completely unreported.
It was Morgan Wallen using the N-word on January 31st, 2021, caught on a neighbor’s Ring doorbell camera that set off an incredible firestorm in country music and beyond that in certain circles is still raging to this day.
Hayley Williams for the pop punk band Paramore recently released a song called “Ego Death At A Bachelorette Party” that starts off by repeating, “I’ll be the biggest star at this racist country singer’s bar” in reference to Wallen. While Morgan Wallen has not been allowed to officially return to the Grand Ole Opry since the N-Word incident.
But in video taken on January 23rd, 2023 at the Ghost Ranch of fellow country rapper Ryan Upchurch (also referred to as simply “Upchurch”), Jelly Roll is heard using the N-word in conversation, and perhaps as many as three times.
This video was captured nearly two years after the Morgan Wallen N-word incident. And unlike the Morgan Wallen footage that was published exclusively via TMZ, you can find this footage and many mentions of it on YouTube, X/Twitter, Reddit, and Facebook/Instagram/Threads. A major Reddit thread was posted about the incident in July. However, the media has never addressed it.
“We need to have 10 more conversations like this. I just turned down $50,000 from Tyler Farr, and I don’t know why. You know why? Because he’s somebody I can’t get a hold of … (inaudible) Because you’re beefin’ with Tyler Farr nigg–“ Jelly Roll is heard saying in the clip that has been the most widely shared. But it appears he’s heard using the N-word twice more later in the full video.
The full, 18:25 video was uploaded onto YouTube by an anonymous account called “The Leakage Capsule” on January 3rd, 2025. Along with the above remark found at the 7:42 mark of the video, other N-word’s can be potentially heard at the 6:46 mark when Jelly Roll is talking about talking to Taste of Country journalist/DJ Evan Paul, and at the 8:29 mark where Jelly Roll is talking about a collaboration with Jason Aldean.
Though both of these moments have been pointed out as other N-word moments, the audio is not clear enough to verify exactly what Jelly Roll is saying, unlike the moment at the 7:42 mark.
But the video has also surfaced in other places, and earlier than the full YouTube video. On December 18th, 2024, a Ryan Upchurch fan account on TikTok uploaded the N-word video, along with a series of videos of Ryan Upchurch addressing the video beforehand, and explaining the context of his meeting with Jelly Roll and fellow country rapper Adam Calhoun on January 23rd, 2023.
“I’ve been sitting her trying to start this video for the last 30 minutes, cause I ain’t gonna lie, this is probably one of my favorite videos I’m ever gonna make. And it’s also my most non-favorite video I’m ever gonna make. Why is it my favorite? Because everybody needs to see this,” Upchurch says. “And a lot of y’all are going to go back, and things are going to start clicking for y’all. By the end of this video, there’s gonna be some motherf-ckers who don’t have careers no more. Because that is absolutely true.”
Though the December 2024 TikTok clips are where many people first saw the information and the N-Word video, it doesn’t appear to be the origin of them. It was likely a YouTube video from Upchurch himself that has perhaps now been removed. Also interesting to note, the final video in the TikTok series that contains Jelly Roll using the N-Word has the sound removed, likely due to a violation for offensive language by TikTok’s policies.
Then on January 2nd, 2025, Adam Calhoun posted a response video calling Ryan Upchurch a narc for posting the Jelly Roll video. Addressing Upchurch, Adam Calhoun says, “You’re secretly recording people without their consent like a f-cking cop. You police officer, Fed, cop, narc, snitch-ass, tattle-telling little boy.”
Adam Calhoun’s response was in part due to the perception that the video would damage Jelly Roll’s reputation. But since the media never reported on it, no potential damage was ever incurred.
The January 23rd, 2023 meeting of Ryan Upchurch, Jelly Roll, and Adam Calhoun stemmed from a video clip of Jelly Roll being interviewed by Taste of Country’s Evan Paul. Jelly Roll was asked who might be the next country rap artist to break out. After shouting out Struggle Jennings, Jelly Roll also mentions Ryan Upchurch, but says, “I think Ryan Upchurch would be good for the format if we could ever to get him to dial in.”
Upchurch explained later that that the “dial in” comment by Jelly Roll is what offended many people in Upchurch’s fan base, and was the reason for the in-person meeting with Jelly Roll.
“When that’s up there on that channel that’s respected called ‘Taste of Country,’ and the title is ‘Jelly Roll: Why won’t Upchurch commit to country.’ Dude, that is straying people away from ‘Upchurch don’t do country music. Upchurch ain’t country.’ That’s when you get the fan base asking me a question,” Upchurch explains.
Jelly Roll defends himself by saying in the January 23rd, 2023 meeting, “I’m never going to go into one of these interviews and not bring up Ryan Upchurch, not bring up Adam Calhoun, and not bring up Struggle. #1, these are my friends, so I thought.”
Taste of Country actually used the conflict to promote a clip from the interview on YouTube, titling it, “Upchurch got real mad at us after he watched this video.” The clip alone has 1.5 million views. This means a major country music media outlet was very aware of the beef that was happening between Upchurch and Jelly Roll.
The underlying conflict between Jelly Roll, Ryan Upchurch, Adam Calhoun, and others goes much deeper than a single quote, and basically devolves into all of the complexities or a rap beef, and feelings on authenticity. Though many might not be familiar with the name Upchurch, he’s a massive country rap star with multiple Certified Gold and Platinum records. He’s also been someone who has regularly criticized other country rap stars and some country stars for not “keeping it real.”
It was Ryan Upchurch who Luke Combs collaborated with early in Luke’s career, and was later criticized for Confederate Flag imagery that appeared in a video they did together. As artists like Jelly Roll in the underground country rap scene started signing with major labels, Ryan Upchurch remained independent. Another part of the conversation finds Jelly Roll attempting to defend his authenticity, despite being played on mainstream country radio.
“My spirit is that I’m in a radio period, with Nashville radio people,” Jelly Roll says. “Because I’m now on Nashville radio finally, which #1, we should all be celebrating. There should be a moment unanimously for everybody in our culture that goes, ‘Yo, Jelly Roll snuck in the back door on these bitches dog. He’s probably in there doing cocaine and f-ckin’ starting fights and shit. Our dude’s in there.’ That’s how I thought that should be received.”
But when Upchurch says in his introductory video, “By the end of this video, there’s gonna be some motherf-ckers who don’t have careers no more,” he was completely wrong. For whatever reason, the Jelly Roll N-word moment has remained outside of the mainstream perception, and Jelly Roll was never even compelled to issue an apology or an explanation for it.
Saving Country Music reached out to the publicist of Jelly Roll for comment or clarification on this story. They have so far not responded.
Should the public draw the conclusion that Jelly Roll is racist since he’s caught on camera using a racial slur? Very similar to Morgan Wallen, this moment probably has much more to do with an individual very heavily influenced by hip-hop music speaking in the parlance of hip-hop. Also similar to the Morgan Wallen situation, Jelly Roll was in a private moment when he didn’t know he was being recorded, and was in no way exhibiting animosity or anger towards Black people.
However, Jelly Roll’s use of the N-word is still wrong, and especially after the major reckoning that Morgan Wallen and country music endured after the Morgan Wallen N-word incident nearly two years before. At the absolute least, it would seem like the Jelly Roll video would be something the media would find worth reporting on. This is just as much a media issue as it is Jelly Roll getting caught using the N-word.
Morgan Wallen’s N-word moment was not just used against Morgan Wallen. It was used against country music, and continues to be. Should Jelly Roll’s N-word situation be used against country too? The irony of both situations is it wasn’t their country music roots that inspired the utterances. It was their hip-hop ones. The phrase that Morgan Wallen used, “Pus-y ass nigg-“ is common parlance in hip-hip songs, and is even the title of numerous hip-hop tracks.
It is the hip-hop influence within the sound of both Morgan Wallen and Jelly Roll that have made them so widely popular in music, yet strongly polarizing in country. It’s also what has earned both of them the most diverse Black and Brown audiences in the entire country genre.
And as hip-hop continues to encroach as an influence in country, this ironically doesn’t reduce the amount of perceived racism within the genre, it increases it. It’s within the country rap community where you still hear the N-word used, and still see Confederate flags like in the Upchurch video and other country rap videos—things most of mainstream Southern culture and country music moved on from years ago.
Jelly Roll has also seemed to have moved on from many of the excesses of his past, even if he presents himself partly as a sober story, yet continues to openly admit to still imbibing in some drugs and alcohol. But how much of Jelly Roll’s rehabilitation story is a true journey, how much of it is marketing, and how much the media is helping to shield Jelly Roll from the same criticism other performers and country music continue to face is a very fair question to ask.
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August 19, 2025 @ 8:49 am
Look I just think jelly roll should be hunted for sport
August 19, 2025 @ 9:17 am
“The phrase that Morgan Wallen used, “Pus-y ass nigg-“ is common parlance in hip-hip songs, and is even the title of numerous hip-hop tracks.”
There’s the problem: it’s common. It’s going to remain common as long as hip-hop doesn’t stop using it and doesn’t start condemning every one who keeps using it.
August 19, 2025 @ 9:23 am
I genuinely have no idea as I know almost nothing about him, but what is his ethnic background? Basically, does he get a pass for saying it?
(Apologies if it’s mentioned in the article, it was a long one!)
August 19, 2025 @ 9:30 am
What’s Shaboozey done?
August 19, 2025 @ 9:43 am
Jelly Roll is extremely White. He’s also the rare Nashville native in the country music industry.
August 19, 2025 @ 9:43 am
My 2 cents. The Morgan Wallen incident occurred during the height of the cancel culture movement. The Jelly Roll incident occurred 2 years later, but it looks like it wasn’t widely known until late 2024/early 2025 when cancel culture had run its course. Not saying it’s fair, and it’s not like Wallen was actually cancelled, but many people got swept up and away in the moment, leading to severe overreactions in the treatment of offenders. The treatment of the Jelly Roll incident is closer to the normal reaction to something like this. In short, famous guy said bad word and no one really cares.
August 19, 2025 @ 10:13 am
Morgan Wallen becoming more popular after his attempted cancelling was a severe blow to cancel culture. I don’t see any indication that the people who wanted him cancelled then don’t still wish that he was cancelled. It’s that the amorphous moral-panic mob was starting to be ignored.
August 19, 2025 @ 12:01 pm
I completely agree. The same people who wanted to cancel Morgan Wallen wanted to cancel everyone forever for everything. Thankfully people stopped going along with the rabble rousers.
August 19, 2025 @ 10:24 am
I acknowledge that the “end” of cancel culture and the “vibe shift” brought on by the Trump election might be playing a very minor roll in this. But the fact that NO media outlets whatsoever—including left-leaning ones that would go absolutely wild over any other “country” artist using the N-word—have reported on this story defies explanation beyond the obvious truth that Jelly Roll is not just getting a pass, but is being actively shielded from criticism.
You can’t tell me that if video proof of Jason Aldean using the N-word leaked all across the internet, the media wouldn’t have a field day with it. It would be the biggest story in all of America. Simply the phantom perception of racism in his “Try That in a Small Town” video from July of 2023 caused a massive uproar.
For context, the first time I saw the video was about six weeks ago. I actually saw it on X/Twitter, but it was from video taken from the viral Reddit thread I linked to in the article. At that point, it had only been posted for a few days. I started prepping this story and doing research in anticipation of someone reporting on it, but nobody did. As time went on, the fact that nobody was reporting on it started to emerge as the story.
Then when Hayley Williams released her song “Ego Death At A Bachelorette Party,” that calls out the “racist country singer’s bar,” and everyone started to hypothesize who it was about (and she later confirmed Morgan Wallen), it illustrated the severe double standard at play here.
Nobody will be able to convince me that if some other prominent White person in popular American society got caught using the N-word, it wouldn’t at least raise a blip in the media.
So many outlets have spilled so much ink demonstrably praising Jelly Roll, many have decided they can’t go back now.
August 19, 2025 @ 1:42 pm
The media would absolutely try to drag Jason Aldean across glass shards in similar circumstances. They might try to make it the biggest news story, I just don’t think it would gain traction anymore.
I’m sure Jelly Roll is being shielded. The media isn’t fair. He’s hip hop and accepted in the black community. He gets a pass.
August 19, 2025 @ 1:43 pm
So what exactly are you calling for? You continue to lambast me and criticize Morgan for his statements long past, he admitted fault and he and we all have moved on. He’s the biggest country artist in the world, no one gives a shit, myself included.
Not sure what your point of the article is. Do you want jelly roll canceled? I don’t. And his fans surely don’t. Even his haters probably don’t. So what’s the point of the article? You trying to con the liberal media to write an article about him and bring him down? I sure hope not, cause that would be pretty fucked up and a complete abrogation of SCM, its mission and its readers.
Ultimately, he’s one of the best success stories in our genre in many decades. Not just because of his talent but because of what he overcame to become the headliner that he is. He’s a treasure in a way established country stars are who have been in this genre for many years. He’s a feel good story. And brings in fans from outside the genre to us.
I think the reason for all this is he’s not seen as overtly political. He appeared at UFC and shook trumps hand, he was criticized and people tried to cancel him but he gave a typical diplomatic political answer about how he respects all presidents.
Jason Aldean, and Hayley Williams are political figures. Their politics in many ways are bigger than their music. They are polarizing in ways few other artists are and in 2025, allegiances to either artist almost certainly are one to one correlations to how someone voted in 2024.
That said the media is still left wing. Hayley called country music, bar owners and US all racists. And the only people upset were conservatives. She faced little to no outrage or questions from the media and was completely insulated from it all. The fact she could engage in slander, and libel and act in such a disgustingly awful and gross manner is shocking. And it shouldn’t be acceptable.
Aldean though, was absolutely put through the wringer by the media after THIAST. ABC and CNN asked him in face interviews if he was a racist or not. That’s a level of journalist prejudice you don’t get for democrats.
I do question though your motives and partisan nature; in your Hayley article you refused to condemn or call her out for her behavior and admitted your impetus for the article was to discuss lower broadway.
With this article you seem to be almost begging legacy media do take down jelly roll.
Why the discrepancy? Why are you so harsh with people who use the n word ( wallen coverage by you was universally negative towards him), yet you seem to not want to call out those who demean US ALL by labeling us racist, inbred freaks.
To me the latter is way worse than the former. And Hayley should not be welcome in Nashville establishments.
Would appreciate you not acting partisan in posts, as it ruins the integrity of your brand.
Call balls and strikes. Instead of being blatantly liberal.
August 19, 2025 @ 1:59 pm
“I do question though your motives and partisan nature; in your Hayley article you refused to condemn or call her out for her behavior and admitted your impetus for the article was to discuss lower broadway. “
I refused to condemn Hayley Williams? The whole article was about how she was spewing out a negative stereotype that wasn’t fair to every bar, including artist-owned bars, in the region. Maybe I didn’t go hard enough for you, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t condemn it. I wrote a whole damn article about it.
“With this article you seem to be almost begging legacy media do take down jelly roll.”
If I was doing that, I wouldn’t have contextualized the N-word use, and explained why it shouldn’t immediately make people draw conclusions that he’s racist … and then say the same thing about Morgan Wallen. They might be racist. The N-word utterances don’t guarantee that though. It is ignorant behavior nonetheless that I condemn.
I chose to broach this subject because I wanted to contextualize it, as opposed to it being contextualized by somebody else, and used to claim the entirety of country music is racist. Eventually, somebody would have an will report on this. And there’s a very good likelihood they’ll use it to try and mischaracterize the entirety of country, esp. fop trying to cover it up. Now, I’m on record. I’m breaking the story, not some political apparatchik opportunist who is hell bent on destroying country music.
I’m not calling for Jelly Roll’s cancellation. I am calling for fairness in country music reporting. Morgan Wallen was disqualified for awards, kicked off country radio, suspended by his label, had to apologize on national television, donate $500,000, and made a public pariah.
Jelly Roll? Seven months this info has been out there, and was reignited six week ago. Not a single other media outlet has even said a peep.
August 19, 2025 @ 10:02 am
I’ve been aware of Upchurch for awhile simply because of my morbid curiosity for the shit-show that is Hick-Hop music. He’s very much a high-school girl in how he posts videos complaining about anyone and everyone while trying to gain clout. Upchurch has a song where he uses the hard-R variation of the N word that I hear played in this Country dance hall outside of Nashville every time I’m setting up. I believe that Upchurch is racist in that he has some mean-spirited ingroup preferences but I don’t see where Jelly Roll is any kind of racist even with his past associations with Upchurch. Prison sentences force people into racial groups because of the nature of prison culture but I’m not aware that JR was spoken on that. Rap is the wrong genre to be into if one truly is a racist. I utterly hate rap with every fiber of my being and I believe it to be worst version of modern music, but even I understand that black artists allow some white rappers to use the N word in certain contexts (not that I care about social nuances from rap culture).
For all the things Jelly Roll should be criticized for this one just makes my eyes roll. I don’t buy his redemption arc at all, and his crappy ass music that makes Creed sound like Steely Dan by comparison.
August 19, 2025 @ 12:29 pm
I agree, he’s no more country than Beonce.
August 19, 2025 @ 10:10 am
I can’t stress enough how much I do not care that Jelly Rolly used the “N” word. It doesn’t change anything about how I think of him.
August 19, 2025 @ 10:34 am
Bring back Marvin Rainwater.
August 19, 2025 @ 10:38 am
It’s just a word, people. Get over it.
August 19, 2025 @ 12:20 pm
Listen, the first rule to learn in life is that double standards exist, and pointing them out won’t induce shame in the people using them. They don’t care. Because if they did, they wouldn’t use them in the first place.
Jelly Roll belongs to the popular crowd.
August 19, 2025 @ 12:25 pm
I know this is mainly a piece about media…
And I know almost nothing about jelly roll or Wallen…
But I lived in Baltimore for 15 years and local working class or poor white males absolutely could use the N word just like local black folks, in the presence of black folks. It was common.
August 19, 2025 @ 12:28 pm
I don’t understand why people like this guy.
August 19, 2025 @ 1:12 pm
The worst part about this article is that the name Ryan Upchurch resurfaced. Can we please let this guy fade into obscurity? The Jerry Springer drama got old fast and probably killed any momentum he might have had at one point or another.
August 19, 2025 @ 1:36 pm
Jelly roll is a joke. Why do so many people think it is okay to use hate speech. It is wrong no matter who uses it. So many people think it is okay to use racist slurs or transphobic and homophobic slurs , and the r word to make fun of disabled people, there are bigots who try to normalize these words. There is a word for people who are bigots that they need to learn it is called RESPECT. no matter who you disagree with, every human being in this country deserves respect. You don’t look cool belittling or harrasing people, you just look disgusting.
August 19, 2025 @ 1:37 pm
If Morgan Wallen was obese and had face tattoos he would have been given a pass.
August 19, 2025 @ 1:45 pm
One standard for Wallen, another for Roll. I do not understand the Jelly Roll or Post Malone being mentioned when talking country music. Neither fit the genre at all. Neither sound country or look country. I would be happy for both to go away. They are no good.
August 19, 2025 @ 1:49 pm
No one seems to have an issue nor do they want to ban rap music with n words every other word, anti women lyrics and glorification of violence. Why single out Jelly Roll? His music is way more positive than most artists in the genre. Not sure why blacks get a pass on the word and can say it all the time in their songs and then be upset if a white person says it, while rapping along to those same lyrics. Dont rap and produce and release it if you don’t want people singing along to every single word.
Too often rappers blame others for their own issues. It’s pretty simple. Get married, graduate from school and get a job. Don’t get arrested and don’t commit crime. Don’t be a father than leaves your family and kids and wife. It’s simple. That’s what most normal people do.
It’s not Whitey or the system or the man or racism or the patriarchy, or capitalism or nazis or bigots that prevent you from doing any of that.
Jelly roll by contrast admits he’s flawed. Admits he’s made mistakes. Admits he did crimes. He takes full responsibility.
That’s the difference. One blames society for their failings in life. One accepts his own faults and warts and all and tries to make the world a better place and himself a better person.