When country-music fans hit play on Ella Langley’s second album, Dandelion, out on Friday, the first song they’ll hear won’t sound anything like Langley’s pop-crossover smash “Choosin’ Texas.” The 26-year-old from Hope Hull, Alabama, chose to open Dandelion with a centuries-old folk song, “Froggy Went a-Courtin’.”
“The first two songs I ever learned how to sing were ‘Amazing Grace’ and ‘Froggy Went a-Courtin’,” says Langley, calling during a rare moment of downtime in what has already been a transformative year for the singer and songwriter. “Whenever we do family reunions, everyone would gather around the piano and sing ‘Froggy.’ This record is so personal to me in the way of trying to give you a little insight into not only me, but Alabama, growing up in the country with these old type of songs.”
Langley recorded a full version of “Froggy” with the country traditionalist Charlie Worsham, and uses snippets of that bare-bones performance to bookend Dandelion. In between are lush and smoky country ballads shot through with irresistible melodies. Songs like the swooning “Be Her,” the escapist “Loving Life Again,” and the disarming title track have more in common with the smooth Urban Cowboy movement of Eighties country than the bright and twangy Nineties sounds presently in vogue.
The Academy of Country Music’s reigning New Female Artist of the Year got her start playing cover sets in bars when she was just 18. In 2019, she moved to Nashville, and broke through five years later — relatively quickly by Nashville’s 10-year-town standards — with “You Look Like You Love Me,” a cheeky come-on of a duet with fellow country singer Riley Green that won Song of the Year at the 2025 CMA Awards. It was an unconventional radio hit that found Langley reciting her verses, not singing them, and its success announced her as an exciting new talent in Nashville unafraid to take risks.
“I had some arguments about ‘You Look Like You Love Me’ in the beginning,” she says, recalling a standoff with her label, Columbia. “They all wanted me to sing those verses. They just didn’t believe that the song would work. But I am as hardheaded as you can imagine someone ever being in their life. After that moment, it created this level of trust where they don’t question me.”
Aaron Raitiere, who co-wrote the song with Langley, describes her as a “magical” songwriter. “She is a vehicle for new, timeless country music,” Raitiere says. “It isn’t uncomfortable or forced. It’s always calm, cool, and easy.”
Indeed, Langley exudes chill in conversation. When talking about her parents, she laughs at their polar-opposites love story — Dad’s from Deep South Alabama, Mom’s from Michigan — and says the dreamy imagery of Dandelion was born in part from her penchant for weed. “You want to know why this record is so colorful? My brain moves so fast that I just function well that way,” she says.
Whatever inspires Langley’s easygoing brand of country music, it’s working. Earlier this year, she made history when “Choosin’ Texas” hit Number One on Billboard’s Hot 100, Hot Country Songs, and Country Airplay charts at the same time. Morgan Wallen, Post Malone, and Shaboozey are the only other artists to ever achieve the feat; Langley is the first woman. To date, “Choosin’ Texas” has spent five nonconsecutive weeks atop the Hot 100. When she conceived the song, with country star Miranda Lambert and the songwriters Luke Dick and Joybeth Taylor, Langley says she was thinking about a tall tale she had heard involving Lambert, a kangaroo, and a traffic stop.
“We were at this writers retreat, and I just asked her,” Langley says, laughing. “She had a dog in the back and a kangaroo in the passenger seat, and got pulled over. I said randomly, ‘I’m sure [the police officer] was like, She’s from Texas, I can tell.’”
That line ended up becoming the hook of “Choosin’ Texas,” the song that knocked Harry Styles’ “Aperture” out of the top spot and catapulted Langley into the mainstream. She says its theme of unrequited love — a cowboy returns to his cherished Lone Star State, leaving Langley alone at a bar sipping Jack Daniel’s — is universal. “Everyone can relate to wanting something that doesn’t want you back, whether it be a relationship or a job,” she says. “I’m giving my heart to people a lot. And that’s scary to constantly do, because no one wants their heart broken.”
‘She lives life in a big way’
Langley reunited with Lambert when it came time to record Dandelion. They sing together on “Butterfly Season,” and Lambert co-produced the album with Langley and Ben West. The women have a bond forged before they ever met at that writers camp. When Langley was only a teenager, her family suffered a serious financial crisis, and she took solace in “The House That Built Me,” Lambert’s hit ballad about returning to where you were raised many years later. “We lost our house to the bank the day after my 14th birthday,” Langley recalls. “I heard that song for the first time around then. I was like, ‘Whoa, she’s singing about my life.’”
“Ella has a fiery spirit,” Lambert says. “She lives life in a big way and on her own terms. With this record, I wanted to honor her vision every step of the way.… It felt important to help her make choices that stayed true to who she is as an artist.”
Dandelion also includes a nod to another strong-willed woman from country music’s past: a faithful cover of Kitty Wells’ 1952 track “It Wasn’t God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels,” the first song by a solo woman to ever top the country charts. Langley loves the song and its message of empowerment so much that she uses it as the alarm on her smart speaker at home. “She had some balls on her, you know?” Langley says.
This spring and summer, Langley will play stadiums with Wallen and perform at festivals in California and Kentucky; in May, she’ll kick off her headlining Dandelion tour. “Putting on the live show has been the number-one dream for me,” she says.
Thanks to “Choosin’ Texas,” she’s also become a Number One pop songwriter, which makes perfect sense when you consider the full range of her listening tastes. “My biggest influence was Stevie Nicks, and the symbolism in songs,” Langley says. “Sometimes I’ll put in words like ‘Drinking Jack all by myself.’ That can mean a lot of things. Yes, literally, I’m sitting here drinking Jack, but what it’s also saying is ‘He’s gone!’”
Tupac Shakur at the Club USA in New York City, New York, 1994.
Prosecutors Put Rap Lyrics on Trial. Maryland Is About to Shut It Down
“I’m Gucci. It’s a rap. F**k [can they do] about a rap?”
Those are the words of Lawrence Montague on a jail phone call, words that now sit at the center of a broader legal reckoning unfolding in Maryland over the use of rap lyrics as evidence in criminal proceedings.
Maryland prosecutors introduced Montague’s rap verse, recorded using a jailhouse telephone and later posted to Instagram as evidence of his guilt for the killing of George Forrester. In December 2020, Maryland’s highest Court ruled in Montague vs. Maryland that rap lyrics can be admitted in court as evidence of a defendant’s guilt. The Court’s treatment of the genre as inherently violent reflects a deeply flawed and biased assumption, and Montague was ultimately convicted and sentenced to fifty years.
On appeal, the state’s highest court affirmed Montague’s conviction, finding that Montague’s lyrics made it more probable that he shot and killed Forrester. In doing so, the Court embraced the very kind of bias the legal system is supposed to guard against.
That ruling set a dangerous precedent, particularly for rap and hip-hop artists in America, and prompted Variety to publish our January 2021 opinion piece. What we didn’t realize at the time was that the article would help spark a national movement — now a united front of influential academics, defense and civil rights attorneys, and prominent music industry advocacy organizations including Songwriters of North America, the Black Music Action Coalition, The Recording Academy, and more. Together, we’ve partnered under a coalition known as Free Our Art, led by high-profile music executive Kevin Liles and co-chaired by me and Prophet. Over the past few years, the coalition has built a diverse and bipartisan group of allies, urging lawmakers to act. This week, in a full circle moment, Maryland became only the third state to pass a bill reconsidering how creative works are used in criminal trials. The bill now heads to the desk of Maryland Governor Wes Moore, who is widely expected to sign it into law.
When signed, Maryland’s Protecting Artists’ Creative Expression (PACE) Act will join California and Louisiana, which enacted similar laws in 2022 and 2023 following advocacy by BMAC, SONA and later Free Our Art. Critically, the legislation establishes clear standards for when creative works may be admitted as evidence in criminal proceedings.
This law addresses a growing concern among the music industry, legal scholars, and civil rights advocates, as rap lyrics have almost exclusively been used against Black and Brown artists in more than 820 cases since the 1980s. The PACE Act seeks to limit bias in the courtroom, reinforcing First Amendment protections that are frequently overlooked today. When signed into law, the legislation would limit the use of artistic expression as evidence to narrowly defined legal circumstances. Any creative expressions the government is looking to present as evidence must be presented to the judge before a jury trial even begins. These include instances where a defendant clearly intended the work to be taken literally, where it contains specific factual details tied to an alleged offense, where it is directly relevant to a disputed issue, and where its probative value outweighs any unfair prejudice.
Race has long shaped how rap lyrics are interpreted in the legal system. Courts have often misunderstood the history, purpose, and cultural significance of rap music in America, which emerged in the 1970s in the South Bronx as a response to poverty, unemployment, gang violence, isolation from mainstream America, and unfair treatment by government institutions. Courts are starting to correct the problem — overturning convictions where rap lyrics were wrongly used — but that’s not justice, that’s damage control. We need real protection on the front end. That’s why the PACE Act matters.
And the momentum is building: New York, Georgia, and Missouri legislatures are in discussions to pass laws to defend artistic freedom and draw the line.
Black artistry deserves the same legal protection as any other form of creative expression. Yet past rulings, including the Montague case in Maryland, have left Black artists exposed to bias rooted in misunderstanding — and too often, a refusal to engage with the culture itself. Research shows that rap, a predominantly Black genre, is more likely to be seen by jurors as more threatening, more dangerous, and grounded in reality. The result: Black expression is treated as evidence of criminality, while white artists in other genres such as country music exploring similar themes are afforded creative freedom. In court, slang, generic references, and race can unfairly prejudice juries far beyond their actual probative value.
Artists such as Tupac Shakur, Public Enemy, N.W.A, and Kendrick Lamar have long used hip-hop to tell stories and challenge injustice. That tradition is central to the genre and should not be mistaken for confession. Black artists deserve the opportunity to express fear and anger and process trauma and lived experiences without that expression being used against them in court. That distinction is exactly what this legislation seeks to protect.
With the PACE Act now moving through the final stages of approval, Maryland has an opportunity to correct a longstanding imbalance in the legal system. If signed into law, it will set a clear standard — one that other states should follow.
Dina LaPolt is an entertainment attorney, activist, and co-founder of the Songwriters of North America; and Willie “Prophet” Stiggers is the chairman and CEO of the Black Music Action Coalition. Special thanks to Loyola Law School student Kayla Ruff.