A Seattle blues singer who has performed for years as Lady A is accusing country band Lady Antebellum of “white privilege” after changing its name to Lady A, without contacting her first, in an attempt to appease the woke left.
On Thursday, the Grammy-winning country trio announced that it was dropping the latter half of their name due to the word’s connection to the pre-Civil War south. They now want to be called “Lady A,” instead of “Lady Antebellum,” they said.
But blues singer Anita White, who has performed as “Lady A” for 20 years, is lashing out at the band for assuming it has the right to take her name without even asking her for the privilege. White has decades of history with the name and has released several albums using the moniker of Lady A, the latest of which is entitled, Lady A: Live in New Orleans.
“This is my life. Lady A is my brand, I’ve used it for over 20 years, and I’m proud of what I’ve done,” White told Rolling Stone magazine. “This is too much right now. They’re using the name because of a Black Lives Matter incident that, for them, is just a moment in time. If it mattered, it would have mattered to them before. It shouldn’t have taken George Floyd to die for them to realize that their name had a slave reference to it.”
White continued lashing out, adding, “It’s an opportunity for them to pretend they’re not racist or pretend this means something to them. If it did, they would’ve done some research. And I’m not happy about that. You found me on Spotify easily — why couldn’t they?”
The country band formally known as Lady Antebellum may be infringing on trademark laws with its attempt to rebrand itself. There are cases, though, of groups with the same name working out a coexistence agreement if they operate in different music genres.
The Seattle singer says she has a business trademark but is unsure just where she stands legally at this time.And she plans to consult a lawyer.
“I don’t know if [the new Lady A] are going to give me a cease-and-desist. I don’t know how they’d react. But I’m not about to stop using my name,” White exclaimed. “For them to not even reach out is pure privilege. I’m not going to lie down and let this happen to me. But now the burden of proof is on me to prove that my name is, in fact, mine, and I don’t even know how much I’ll have to spend to keep it.”
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