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American country music singer Katie Noel has sparked online controversy with her new release, Southern.
On February 17, the 23-year-old personality shared the official music video of her new song, which is similar to Blake Shelton's song Boys 'Round Here. In the music video, the singer can be seen celebrating the country lifestyle with rap, alongside her friends.
Within five days of its release, the song came under fire for being the "worst country song ever made," with people comparing it to Rebecca Black's Friday, which was released 11 years ago.
Twitter reactions to Katie Noel's new song
After Katie Noel's song, Southern, went viral over the internet, Twitterati slammed the singer for her song. Several users compared Southern to Rebecca Black's Friday, and called it "cringe" and "ear bleeding" material.
Others could not comprehend what kind of music Noel had come up with and reacted to it with memes.
Katie Noel responded to the backlash
After receiving immense backlash online for her new release Southern, Noel took to her TikTok handle to respond to the criticism.
On February 22, the 23-year-old singer made a pretend news segment video about the situation using a spray bottle as a mic.
She joked:
“This is tasteless b*tch reporting live from Southern Kentucky. Overnight sensation Katie Noel has [gone] viral with her song, Southern. And we ask ourselves: ‘What the actual f*ck is that?'”
She then questioned Barstool how they felt about the scenario before turning over to a real barstool and impersonating Brady Cox and Theo Von from Whiskey Riff.
Katie Noel discovered her passion for music in high school
Born on December 14, 1999, Katie Noel is a native of Asheville, North Carolina. The 23-year-old's song style is known for showcasing drinking, cars, and singing about Southern pride.
Noel's songs like Blood Red and Diesel Gang highlighted her rapping skills, but her compilation albums had more conventional country tracks and acoustic reworks of her rap songs.
Katie Noel, whose real name is Katie McGalliard, attended a local high school in North Carolina where she discovered her passion for music. She participated in several music competitions and took her friends' advice of creating a YouTube channel in 2014 to share songs and videos.
In 2017, she started posting videos of herself performing and playing guitar, beginning with an acoustic version of Rae Sremmurd's 2016 hit Black Beatles.
She then uploaded new recording material on a daily basis, which included covers of both country and rap, as well as her own original tracks.
In late 2017, Noel worked on a remix version of Lil Pump's Gucci Gang with her own lyrics about trucks and eventually produced a new instrumental for her hit 2018 single Diesel Gang. The song instantly became a hit on YouTube with millions of views.
Diesel Gang's hit opened new doors for Katie Noel's music career and she released a mixtape called Just Gonna Send It in 2018.
In 2019, she focused more on rap and released her song Rap the South, which centered around Southern life and backwoods partying. She also released songs like Blood Red and Jeep Gang.
