A US country star has denied claims his new music video is an anti-Black Lives Matter anthem that promotes vigilante gun violence.
Jason Aldean’s Try That In A Small Town was pulled off air on Monday by Country Music Television, days after its release.
On Twitter, Aldean, 46, rejected the criticism, calling it “meritless” and “dangerous”.
Another country star, Sheryl Crow, accused Aldean of “promoting violence”.
The song was released in May, but the video came out last Friday and quickly began to draw a backlash.
The three-minute production features clips of masked protesters, Molotov cocktails and a burning American flag as well as CCTV of robberies.
“Well, try that in a small town, see how far ya make it down the road,” Aldean sings.
The lyrics also refer to “a gun that my granddad gave me” and communities “full of good ol’ boys, raised up right”.
The video was filmed in front of a courthouse in Columbia, Tennessee. Critics noted that a white mob lynched a young black man, Henry Choate, from the building in 1927. READ MORE