Miley Cyrus and Mickey Guyton sat down together for Rolling Stone's Musicians on Musicians series to discuss their own careers, and how they've been carving their own path. The two also talked about how it's important to not be the only one within their respective fields, and how they strive for more competition so they can feel as though they have earned their place.

Sharing some wisdom from her father, Billy Ray Cyrus, Miley Cyrus said, "'Don't think outside the box, because there is no box.'" The advice from Billy Ray proved to be the driving point for both Cyrus and Guyton's conversation, with the two talking about how they've been known to do things their own way in their careers, Cyrus as an artist always willing to try new things and genre-hop, and Guyton for raising the awareness of Black women in country music.

"The conscious awareness of the box that you're not in just keeps the box living and breathing," Cyrus said. "For me, especially being someone that's kind of known for being controversial, when there's a line and I cross it, I don't even really focus on that – because now we're focusing more on the line than the action."

Guyton herself agreed, sharing with Cyrus how she felt boxed-in by country music for years before she began allowing herself to be authentically who she is and sharing her own story. It resulted in inspiring her debut album, Remember Her Name, which has brought Guyton stardom after ten years in Nashville and found her honored as CMT's Breakout Artist of the Year. The country singer has been vocal about how Remember Her Name helped her discover herself, and how her husband pointing out that she needed to sing about her own experiences proved to be a catalyst for her career.

"I was wearing my hair and trying to dress and act like these women in country music, and it was so toxic for me," Guyton said. "And that's what this record is: It's literally me just releasing all of the chains that I put upon myself. I didn't care where this music landed. People were like, 'Well, do you want it to get on country radio?' I'm like, 'I'm not going to bank on something that never supported me to begin with.'"

Since finding success, Guyton has regularly been promoting other Black country artists on her social media platform in order to help bring attention to other artists. Cyrus herself revealed that while she has enjoyed success within rock with her latest album, Plastic Hearts, that hasn't been enough for her.

"I don't even feel that it's enough for me to be considered one of the best rock singers of this generation, because there's not enough of them and I want more competition," Cyrus told Guyton. "And for you too, you don't want to be the one female Black singer that they'll allow in country music. Not only do I want to share my light, but I love competition. I want other people that are like me around, so I know that I deserve my place because I'm fighting for it all the time. That's the way I think. I have no desire to be the best, because I want to get better. And you don't want to be the best because you're the only."

With so few Black country musicians breaking into the mainstream, Cyrus' sentiment is one that Guyton is all too familiar with. "Especially for me, in country music, there was Charley Pride," Guyton explained to Cyrus. "And then there was nobody until Darius Rucker, and then a couple of Black dudes here and there. There was Linda Martell, there was Rissi Palmer, and then there as me. I realized that in order to break any of these doors down, it is not enough for it to just be you. That will never work."

"You're opening the door and you want to let people in," Cyrus said. "One is the loneliest number. We need to be stronger together. Open the door, but open the ring, too."

E. White

About E. White