Black Like Me (song)

Guyton wrote "Black Like Me" with Fraser Churchill, Emma Davidson Dillon, and Nathan Chapman, the latter of whom also co-produced the song with Forest Whitehead.[3] It is a piano ballad that details Guyton's experiences as a black woman navigating life and a career in country music (she is the only black female artist signed to a major country music label), highlighting racial inequality with the song's chorus ("If you think we live in the land of the free/You should try to be black like me").[4][3] The song's title was inspired by Black Like Me, a book exposing racial inequality in the Southern United States in the 1960s written by John Howard Griffin.[5]

Written on a writer's retreat in 2019, it wasn't released until June 2020, amidst widespread protests in the wake of the murder of George Floyd.[5] It was originally slated to be released as a bundle alongside "What Are You Gonna Tell Her?" earlier in the year, but its release was postponed in part due to the COVID-19 pandemic.[1] Instead, Guyton posted a snippet of the song on social media and Spotify contacted Capitol Nashville requesting the song's full release, which they then put on top of their Hot Country playlist.[4] Guyton said the response to the song left her overwhelmed with messages from others: "There’s tears of joy, tears of sadness. There’s a guilt that I’m feeling. I keep thinking, “I don’t deserve this.” There's also guilt when I see the pain other people are feeling as their eyes open and see the oppression that I’ve experienced, having to see that pain in them as I'm talking about it. It's all so heavy."[5]

"Black Like Me" earned Guyton a Best Country Solo Performance nomination at the 63rd Annual Grammy Awards, making her the first black woman to receive a Grammy nomination in that category.