Kentucky's latest "Redneck Rave" went exactly how one might imagine it

Arrests, impalements, meth, mud, and MAGA could all be found at last week's hootenanny.

By Andrew Paul  |  June 24, 2021 | 4:30pm
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Kentucky's latest "Redneck Rave" went exactly how one might imagine it
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The author of this is article, from Mississippi, would like to remind readers that not all Southerners are like this. Screenshot: YouTube / Justin Stowers

“Country rap” is an anthropologist’s dream come true: A uniquely American musical sub-genre combining caricatures of both styles, concocted at the societal intersection of race, class, political ideology, chauvinism and proud-as-hell “unwokeness.” The result, generally speaking, are music videos featuring white boys wearing cowboy boots and grills doing their best Foghorn Leghorn struts in front of raised pickup trucks, lowrider cars, and scantily-clad, twerking women in Daisy Duke shorts. It’s weird.

And, perhaps unsurprisingly, it’s a huge, multimillion-dollar moneymaker—a not-so-silent majority of “Yeehaw” good ol’ boys and girls on the constant hunt for their next “Heritage Not Hate” Hootenanny. For some time now, the biggest get-together of them all has been Redneck Rave, a semi-regular event whose name, like the country rap it hosts, probably speaks for itself. Organized and promoted by Justin Stowers, aka country rapper Who TF is Justin Time, Redneck Rave’s most recent meetup occurred over the span of five days earlier this month, and good Lord did it not disappoint.

As reported by The Lexington-Herald Reader, Redneck Rave’s latest outing in Edmonson County, Kentucky, resulted in no less than 48 incidents involving police, 14 of which led to arrests for crimes ranging from meth possession to throat-slashing assaults, alongside your garden variety alcohol poisonings, severed fingers, ATV accidents, and impalements.

“The first vehicle that came through, we found meth, marijuana, and an open alcohol container,” local Sheriff, Shane Doyle, told the Reader. “And then one of the occupants had two active warrants…We were like ‘well, this doesn’t bode well for the weekend.’”

Edmonson County, as one might imagine, had neither the resources nor the law enforcement personnel to deal with the reportedly population-doubling Bud Lite Bacchanalia. “Doyle said he didn’t have enough personnel to go into the park and shut down all illegal activity. The plan instead was to contain it,” recounted the Reader, as if it were less a Redneck Rave and more a zombie horde.

Of course, organizers saw nothing wrong with what transpired, with Stowers already announcing plans for another Redneck Rave later this year. “Some would be mad about all these lies and over exaggerated headlines but you know what they say, no such thing as bad publicity,” said the rapper.

Somehow, no one died at the population-doubling event in Edmonson County, Kentucky, earlier this month, although the Reader notes that the Redneck Rave popped off twice in 2020, resulting in at least one death. While no one died yet, we assume at least one attendee had a helluva good time.

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