Rissi Palmer and Miko Marks
Rissi Palmer and Miko Marks agree: Sixteen years ago, they would not be on tour together. In 2007, Palmer’s hit “Country Girl” was charting on Billboard’s Hot Country Songs and Marks was releasing her second album It Feels Good after working through an indie label to try to get heard in Nashville. It’s still almost totally unheard of to see two Black country artists on the same tour, but back then — in addition to the low probability of getting booked together — they both kept hearing from folks in the industry that they were rivals.
“At that time, because there hadn’t been like ‘the big Black female country star,’ everyone [wanted] to be the one, right?” Palmer says. “When I was starting out, Miko had already put out her record, and so I was kind of trailing behind her, and a lot of people behind the scenes on my side were telling me that there could only be one of us. And then later on, after comparing notes, people on her side were also like, ‘You guys are in competition.’ … So much of being a female artist in the music business, period — not just country, but in all of the music business — is wanting to be the top dog and them wanting you to be the top dog. You see people as your rival, or see people as your competition, as opposed to seeing another fellow musician who’s going through the same things that you are.”
Since 2007, both artists have come into their own. The industry has not changed much, but they have. They both worry less about pleasing the industry’s movers and shakers and more about the process of making music and making a life.
Palmer launched her own program Color Me Country Radio on Apple Music Radio, in which she interviews a who’s who of some of country music’s most interesting minds and gives space for new artists of color and their music. In addition, she established the Color Me Country Artist Fund, which has distributed grants to support BIPOC artists. She’s released several albums and played the Grand Ole Opry, as has Marks. In 2022, Marks was part of CMT’s Next Women of Country and released her album Feel Like Going Home with her band The Resurrectors. She’s just come off another tour, on which she opened for veteran rockers Little Feat. Marks notes the freedom that comes with deciding to finally write about what you want to write about.
Miko Marks and Rissi Palmer
“I wrote about Flint, Mich., and the water crisis — which, by the way, that’s still going on,” Marks says. “The bulk of my family is still there — they’re still suffering. I wanted to shine a light on that process and what’s going on. … And then with the song ‘Goodnight America’ [from 2021’s Our Country] … now you go back 15 years, I wouldn’t have ever done a song like that, ever. Because I would’ve felt it was too political, too stark, too blunt and too much of a true story. Fast-forward all these years of maturity and growing: I heard that song and I was like, ‘I gotta do this song. It’s my truth. It needs to be said.’”
Marks and Palmer embarked on their co-headlining acoustic Miko & Rissi Tour on May 3 in Washington, D.C., before working their way west for a couple of weeks toward their Nashville date at City Winery on Thursday. A few days ahead of her tour with Marks, Palmer was making breakfast — no cinnamon in the oatmeal for her young daughter, but the honey is just fine — at her home in North Carolina. At this point in her career, Palmer says it’s refreshing knowing you’ll get to travel with someone you’ve developed a deep friendship with. Her plate is always full, but she relishes being able to fill it with things she loves. As Marks was driving in the day before their tour opener in D.C., she was feeling similarly. There was no dread, just joy.
“I’ve never done a tour with just one of my friends,” Marks says. “Somebody that I’ve grown with and where our relationship has grown over the years — to go out with her as my first co-headliner, just being out there with a girlfriend, it’s gonna be something I remember for the rest of my life. We’ve really fed our friendship in a way that was natural and organic. It was like we looked up and, ‘Oh, we’re friends.’”
The industry can be full of rejection, and days on the road can get long and lonely. Palmer remembers how touched she was when Marks first reached out to her to break the ice years ago. In a video for the song “Still Here,” performed by Palmer and Marks and released in late April, their friendship and pleasure in being onstage together is on full display.
“Aside from being a friend, I really respect her as a singer,” Palmer says. “I respect her as an artist, and her artistic choices, and all of it. And so what you’re seeing in the video [for ‘Still Here’] and what you’ll see in real life with us together is me just like, ‘This is my girl, but, like, my girl is great.’”
