Listen: Blues Singer Lady A Slams ‘Woke’ Lady Antebellum for Taking Her Name: ‘They Thought I Was Irrelevant’

The country group Lady Antebellum announced in June that it would change its name to “Lady A,” a move that upset Seattle blues singer Anita White, who has been using the name for decades.

“I began using the name back in the late ’80s,” Lady A told The Kyle Olson Show this week.

Lady Antebellum, in an attempt to shed its name’s link to slavery, simply adopted “Lady A.”

“This is what happens when privilege wants to be woke,” Lady A said, “but really doesn’t know how.”

“In your being woke, you can’t go from Lady Antebellum to Lady A and think there’s a difference,” she said.

Lady A alleged Lady Antebellum, and singer Hillary Scott, are not putting “power behind” their words after the two entities had a conversation via Zoom.

“Today we are sad to share that our sincere hope to join together with Anita White in unity and common purpose has ended,” the group said in a statement after announcing they were taking Lady A to court.

“From the beginning, they wanted to ‘coexist,'” Lady A said, which she refused to accept, because she feared their notoriety would crowd her out.

A search of iTunes confirms that: To find the original Lady A, one has to first scroll through releases by Lady Antebellum that weren’t released under “Lady A.”

“Just because I don’t have as many fans as you do does not make me irrelevant,” Lady A told The Kyle Olson Show.

“Nobody asked them to change their name,” she said. “They came out in the public and made this big announcement that they were changing their name, and somebody didn’t think this through.”

John Oliver III, Lady A’s producer, said they tried repeatedly to get details about how “coexisting” would work, and failed.

Lady A’s side asked for options on that front, and weren’t successful, so they proposed their own ideas.

Lady Antebellum later said Lady A was asking for $10 million to rebrand herself and support black artists.

“What she was doing was giving an example of what details would look like if they share the name or if she had to change her name,” Oliver said.

“Lady A is a brand. She’s been doing this for over 30 years,” he said.

Lady A said she doesn’t want to share the name with the Nashville group, and believes she was “dismissed” by them.

“They’re attempting to change this narrative by minimizing my voice. They’re belittling my experience as an artist. And the money that they have allows them to tread on me,” she said.

Lady A alleged Lady Antebellum “already knew what they wanted to do” about changing their name, and “they thought that I was irrelevant.”

Kyle Olson is a reporter for Breitbart News. He is also host of “The Kyle Olson Show,” syndicated on Michigan radio stations on Saturdays. Listen to segments on YouTube. Follow him on Twitter, like him on Facebook, and follow him on Parler.