Live from Music Row Friday morning on The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy – broadcast on Nashville’s Talk Radio 98.3 and 1510 WLAC weekdays from 5:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. – host Leahy welcomed infamous MAGA Rapper Bryson Gray in studio to talk about how his conservative beliefs led to the dismissal amongst some in the hip hop community.
Leahy: Wait, folks, this has never happened before! In studio with us, a MAGA rapper, Bryson Gray. Welcome. Bryson.
Gray: Yes sir. So glad to be here. I’m glad to be here, man. Thank you for having me.
Leahy: When we started this program about three years ago on the list of things that I thought would never happen to have a MAGA rapper in studio. I’m not going to say you’re a unicorn and in the sense that you are unique.
I mean, they’re not a lot of MAGA rappers who would come on our program and talk about what they’re doing. How did you become a MAGA rapper?
Gray: It started when I used to get played on the radio back in my hometown in North Carolina.
Leahy: So you had the talent to begin with?
Gray: Yeah. I’ve been making music because I was like, three. I was on BET performing on 106 & Park in high school.
Leahy: We talked about that. And now that was quite an adventure, right? How many were in that BET program? How many kids were featured?
Gray: It was, at the time, five in my rap group. We had five people at one time.
Leahy: But you were the star, right?
Gray: Actually, it was me and another guy who ended up becoming popular. I have a friend who was in the group who became super popular in rap music.
Leahy: Really?
Gray: His name is Luke Nasty. We just made totally different types of music.
Leahy: So his name is what?
Gray: Luke Nasty.
Leahy: All right, so I don’t think Luke is going to be in studio with us.
Gray: No, no, sir. It’s totally different.
Leahy: When did you decide to go in a different lane? Because most rappers kind of go in the Luke Nasty way, right?
Gray: Correct. What made me shift was the simple fact that when I started saying my beliefs, the radio stations threatened to not play my music, they’re going to stop supporting me. All of my record label connections said they weren’t gonna support me anymore. Then my parents called me cursing me out.
Leahy: Your parents called you?
Gray: Yeah.
Leahy: Oh, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Why did your parents call you? When you say you were promoting your beliefs, which particular beliefs were you’re promoting?
Gray: Being pro-life, pro-traditional family, pro-traditional marriage.
Leahy: Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa my head is exploding. Bryson, Your parents called you and criticize you for being pro-life.
Gray: No, they criticized me – in their eyes, putting my career in jeopardy to say these things out loud. They called me saying, you can’t be a political commentator and be a music artist because you’re going to lose all your connections.
Leahy: Aren’t they one and the same? Aren’t all the others political commentators on the other side?
Gray: Oh, but you can say that stuff. All the stuff on the left. You could say that out loud. You won’t lose any opportunities. But when you say the things I was saying, you will. And they were correct in saying it did make me lose a lot of the opportunities I had.
Leahy: Let’s talk about those. Give me an example. You don’t have to say the company per se. Give me an example of the kind of lost opportunity you experienced because you were basically promoting ideas that were not left-wing lunatic ideas.
Gray: The radio station was called 102 Jams in Greensboro, North Carolina. It is one of the biggest hip-hop stations in North Carolina and I was close with them. I’ve been having music played on there since I was, like, 16.
But when I started pushing those beliefs, it started making it sour. Then I had a connection from Capitol Records. Then he stopped contacting me. It was not everybody.
Leahy: Nobody is talking to you. Except, now you are talking to me.
Gray: Yes, sir.
Leahy:Â The conservative part of the United States that listens to talk radio. We’ll talk to you.
Gray: Yes. It’s funny, because the last time I was in an actual radio station interview was at one onto jams, and basically they ended up kicking me out of the interview.
Leahy: Oh, okay. I’m gonna tell you right now. And you’re very beautiful girlfriend is in here with us, and she’s laughing. She’s laughing. And I promise you, Bryson, I will not kick you out of the studio. (Gray laughs) I promise.
Gray: That’s much better than the last show I was on.
Leahy: I got to hear about this, Bryson Gray, MAGA rapper gets kicked out of the hip hop studio. Just walk us through that story.
Gray: Well, it’s on YouTube. It’s literally on YouTube. The sort of last half I got recorded on YouTube because it was so crazy. Just started recording. I didn’t tell him to or anything. So they wanted to interview me because I had started going viral and they wanted to interview because these people, they’ve known me for years.
I guess they wanted to have a conversation about what was going on in my beliefs. That’s how it was presented. And then when I actually got there, as soon as I got there, they started saying, like, I hope you’re getting the attention you wanted. They were disrespectful from the beginning.
And then it got more disrespectful as it went on. And then me, I give everybody three strikes. So after the third time, I say, I told him, like, watch your tone. Like, just just like, like, say what you want when you have a conversation, but watch your tone. You know what I’m saying?
Leahy: By the way, when Bryson says, watch your tone, our listeners can’t tell, but you’re a pretty big guy. You look like you’re in pretty good shape. Bryson, if you told me to watch my tone, I think I would. (Laughter)
Gray: What’s funny is when I said that it made the guy so angry. He was being so disrespectful. My friends started recording without me asking, that’s how disrespectful they were being to me.
And I always let people slide, because when I respond, I don’t want you to be like, I’m overreacting because I let you do so much to begin with. Then that I ended up checking what he was saying, and he ended up saying, well, you can leave.
You can get out right now. We don’t even want to talk to you. I was like, I mean, I don’t care. And then after that, they had to turn their comments off from Instagram and banned a bunch of Trump supporters on Twitter because a lot of my followers started going to their accounts.
Leahy: And giving them a hard time.
Gray: And saying MAGA. Trump 2020. (Laughs)
Leahy: That must have made them really happy. Your girlfriend is just laughing and laughing and laughing. (Talks to Gray’s girlfriend) Were you there in studio? No, but you saw it on video, right?
Gray: It went viral on Facebook. And I guess I got probably, like, I was, like, 50,000 views on YouTube when I uploaded it. And this is early on. This is like within the first few months of me going viral. And it was hilarious.
Leahy: How long ago was this?
Gray: 2019.
Leahy: About two years ago. You are – originally you’re from High Point, North Carolina.
Gray: High Point, North Carolina born and raised.
Leahy: But you decided to come to Tennessee.
Gray: Yes, sir.
Leahy: When we come back, I want to hear about why you saw the light and decided to come to income state tax-free Tennessee and left your hometown of High Point, North Carolina. There is a story there and we want to hear it.
Listen to the full second hour here:
– – –
Tune in weekdays from 5:00 – 8:00 a.m. to the Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy on Talk Radio 98.3 FM WLAC 1510. Listen online at iHeart Radio.
Photo “Bryson Gray” by Bryson Gray.Â
