Get To Know Black Country Star Mickey Guyton Beyond Her Music

Ahead of the 2025 NYE ball drop in Times Square, country music singer and songwriter Mickey Guyton graced the stage to captivate the audience. The Black entertainer sang songs from her recently dropped album, House on Fire including her single of the same name, “All American” and “My Side of the Country.” Guyton also fittingly covered John Lennon’s “Imagine” to celebrate the past year and the possibilities ahead.

Her career trajectory is highlighted by a Grammy nod in 2021, making her the first solo Black female musician to gain recognition in the category. Guyton is a trailblazer and inspiration to many, including Beyoncé, who sent her a stunning bouquet of flowers earlier this year to acknowledge her success. Once Queen B knows your name, it’s seldom long before the rest of the world does too. Here’s everything we know about Mickey Guyton.

Who Is Mickey Guyton?

Guyton began singing in her church choir at an early age. Since her father was a deacon and her mother, a deaconess, Guyton’s upbringing in Arlington, Texas was strongly Southern Baptist. When she wasn’t at church, she was riding her bike through gravel ditches and climbing trees, tapping into the exploration that can be heard in her music. She was also influenced by a few of her parents’ favorites: BeBe and CeCe Winans. Gospel music is the foundation upon which Guyton developed a passion for country; also a genre of storytelling music. Her appreciation for both genres would spark her decision to pursue a professional singing career. However, it was through the artist’s exposure to Dolly Parton and Leann Rimes that her wheels truly began to spin, helping her work towards joining the ranks.   

Dolly Parton and Family Members Influence Her Music

It was Mickey Guyton’s grandmother’s love for Parton that parked the same in her. The artist’s family matriarch also knows how to whip up a mean cornbread that Guyton regards as a personal favorite. Stories of white men and their plights have long danced across country music radio waves. It’s only recently that Black women’s stories within country music have become a bit more mainstream. Beyoncé’s halftime performance featuring fellow Black female country singers Tanner Adell, Brittany Spencer, Reyna Roberts and Tiera Kennedy was the first of its kind. Since coming onto the scene in 2015, Guyton is working to make sure that it won’t be the last. 

The Black American Country Star Wants To Continue Opening Doors For Women of Color 

In an interview with Southern Living, Guyton spoke about how seriously she takes achieving success, not only for herself but for other women of color. Her Grammy nomination for her song “Black Like Me” cast an even brighter light on being Black both within the musical genre of country and in the South. Her lyrics speak to being told she was different as a kid, and growing up to realize that nothing had changed. “It’s a hard life on easy street / Just white painted picket fences far as you can see,” she sings on the popular track. “If you think we live in the land of the free / You should try to be Black like me.”

She goes on to highlight needing to work twice as hard to receive the pleasures of life and even then they’re not of the same quality. Still, Guyton ends the song with tones of hope and pride: “Oh, and someday we’ll all be free / And I’m proud to be, oh, Black like me.” The artist’s song “All American” continues along the trail of inclusion, detailing aspects of sameness rather than difference.

Mickey Guyton Is Only Just Getting Started

After her 2021 nomination, Guyton accomplished another first: becoming the first Black woman to co-host the Academy of Country Music Awards. Doing so alongside Keith Urban was the perfect way to draw ears toward the release of her first-full-length album, Remember Her Name, which features “Black Like Me.” Guyton would go on to headline a CMT Tour with shows throughout the United States where she experienced, on a grander scale, fans singing her songs back to her. Overcome with emotion, and after over a decade in the music game, she said, “I’ve worked so hard for it”. Followed by the release of her second album, House On Fire, fans were enjoying new material just weeks later. A project characterized by joy, the album also speaks to love, loss and mental health. In celebrating her hard work, Guyton reminds us that there’s joy in perseverance.