Podbit · Pardon My Take
There's a new Grammy category for Best Traditional Country, and its first-ever winner jogged out of breath to accept the award — then had to tell people he'd beaten Willie Nelson. He knows it feels wrong. He won anyway.
Where this was said
At 2:47:30 · chapter starts 2:27:00
Big Cat officially introduces Grammy winner Zach Top, and PFT immediately gets his Grammy story — Top wandered in late, sat in the back of the auditorium, missed the first two categories, then had to jog 100 yards to the stage after his album won, arriving out of breath [1] — Zach Top "There's a new Grammy category for Best Traditional Country, and its first-ever winner jogged out of breath to accept the award — then had t…" 2:47:30 . The crew is delighted to learn he beat Willie Nelson. PFT, a self-described '90s country fan, asks about the genre's evolution, and Top delivers a sharp analysis: country has always been cyclical, from Kenny Rogers supposedly ruining it in the '70s to Florida Georgia Line opening the modern chapter in 2010 to Morgan Wallen's current peak — and now the pendulum swings back toward traditional sounds [2] — Zach Top "Country music has always been cyclical. Back in the '70s, Kenny Rogers was ruining country. Then Strait and Randy Travis saved it. Now Kenn…" 2:42:00 . Top explains that his sound isn't calculated; growing up on a Washington farm with George Jones box sets and George Strait, that music just comes out of him.
Country music has always been cyclical. Back in the '70s, Kenny Rogers was ruining country. Then Strait and Randy Travis saved it. Now Kenny Rogers sounds traditional. Florida Georgia Line blew the doors open in 2010, Morgan Wallen owns the peak — and now the pendulum swings back to roots. That's Zach Top's lane.
Zach Top won the first-ever Best Traditional Country Grammy, beating Willie Nelson in the category.
Zach Top went from working construction in Colorado to headlining arena tours within roughly five years of moving to Nashville full-time.
Zach Top grew up homeschooled on a farm in rural Washington, nearly finished an engineering degree at Colorado Boulder, worked construction, then moved to Nashville full-time in 2021. By 2024 he was headlining arenas. The first moment he knew it was real: 800 people in Gainesville, Georgia singing his words back to him.
Reggae didn't emerge from thin air — it was built layer by layer from mento in the 1940s, ska in the late 1950s, and rocksteady in the mid-1960s. Each stage absorbed new influences, from transistor radios picking up Miami R&B to the distinctive 2-and-4 rhythmic accent that defines the genre.
Before hip-hop existed, Jamaican DJs were already doing it. Electricity spreading across Jamaica enabled mobile 'sound systems,' and DJs developed toasting — speaking and singing over recorded music — a tradition that DJ Kool Herc brought from Kingston to the Bronx at age 12.
Joe Higgs is reggae's great unsung hero. This Kingston musician took teenage Bob Marley, Peter Tosh, and Bunny Wailer under his wing and taught them how to sing, write songs, and make music — at a time when most artists would have focused on their own careers. Without him, the Wailers probably just would have sucked.
Reggae archivist Roger Steffens' analogy says it all: Bob Marley was reggae's Martin Luther King Jr., making the music universally palatable; Peter Tosh was its Malcolm X, inserting fierce militant political energy. Together, they gave the Wailers a depth no single voice could achieve alone.
King Tubby built his own hardware from cast-off recording gear to strip vocals and create dubbed-out instrumental reggae — essentially inventing electronic music in Kingston before Kraftwerk did it in Germany. The dubplate he created became the raw material for DJs to toast over, seeding hip-hop.
Two days before the 1976 Smile Jamaica anti-violence concert, gunmen shot Bob Marley in the chest and shoulder, shot Rita Marley, and wounded two others. He showed up and played anyway. The concert had already drawn accusations that Marley was a tool of the PNP government — a charge that frustrated him deeply.
Peter Tosh's killer was a man Tosh had taken in after prison, giving him shelter and food. The man repaid that generosity by holding Tosh hostage, torturing him for money, and shooting him in the head. It is one of the most brutal betrayals in music history.
The Windrush Generation brought Caribbean music to London after World War II, and reggae's 2-and-4 rhythm lodged itself deep in British culture — giving birth to ska bands like The Specials, pop acts like UB40, and even punk. Johnny Rotten was a reggae fan, and Public Image Limited has the dub influence to prove it.
Reggaetón didn't come from nowhere. It emerged from underground Spanish-language reggae-rap scenes in Panama and Puerto Rico, drawing directly on Jamaican reggae's rhythms and attitude. The line from Kingston to Bad Bunny's Super Bowl performance is a straight one.
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