Holly G is a country music industry disruptor. In April 2021, she founded the Black Opry, which began as a website and Twitter account celebrating the Black performers working in country, Americana, folk, and other adjacent musical styles — a part-time passion project for the former flight attendant and hospitality industry employee — and quickly grew into a “vital voice” (Billboard) within those genres: a “thriving collective of artists supporting artists” (WXPN) and “a force of change and a leader in the movement to bring racial equity to country music” (Rolling Stone).

The Black Opry is featured in the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum exhibition American Currents: State of the Music 2022, has a year-long collaboration with Wrangler, and, in early 2023, partnered with Philadelphia public radio station WXPN for the first Black Opry Residency, which brought five acts together for virtual workshops and a week of creative work in Philadelphia. (A podcast documenting the residency is forthcoming.) The “hub for Black talent” (Grammy.com) has devoted itself to advocating for Black entertainers and helping the marginalized group reclaim its place in the American musical canon.

The Black Opry Revue, the organization’s national touring showcase, began in October 2022 and has since staged performances at Nashville’s Exit/In; Los Angeles’s Troubadour; the Millennium Stage at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C.; Berkeley, Calif.’s non-profit venues Freight & Savage; and several City Winery venues. The Revue has also earned slots at festivals including the Newport Folk Festival (2022, 2023), Hardly Strictly Bluegrass (2022), AmericanaFest (2022), the 30A Songwriters Festival (2023), Cayamo (2023), MerleFest (2023), and the High Water Festival (2023).

Holly G, who now co-directs the Black Opry with Tanner Davenport, is a member of Leadership Music’s Class of 2023 and a member of The Recording Academy. She has appeared on NBC’s The Kelly Clarkson Show, Nashville public radio station WPLN’s This Is Nashville show, and Apple Music’s Color Me Country Radio with Rissi Palmer and Today’s Country Radio with Kelleigh Bannen shows. Holly has also spoken on panels at AmericanaFest (2021, 2022), Music Biz (2022, 2023), and the International Country Music Conference (2023). Her writing has appeared on Grammy.com, Holler, Taste of Country, and The Boot, as well as in the quarterly roots music journal No Depression.

In September 2023, Holly G launched Black Opry Records, in partnership with Thirty Tigers, which focuses on developing and empowering emerging Black artists in roots music with a heavy emphasis on country music artists.