10 Musical Collaborations That Didn't Really Work

One of the biggest draws for musicians to get together is the "message single." Even if the entire project ends up sounding terrible from the start, it will always get the celebrity seal of approval for actually stepping up and attempting to have an impact on the world. Then again, when you're making something with a message, some of them can be a little more on the nose than others and it hits a real ugly note.

That's not to say that Brad Paisley and LL Cool J didn't have their hearts in the right place when making Accidental Racist, looking to have some sort of dialogue about racial tension in the South. In execution though, this feels like some of the most uncomfortable conversations imaginable sung by a guy who's more equipped to be singing about the wonders of his truck. While we're already on unsteady ground with Brad Paisley taking on this song, hearing him trying to defend the Confederate flag on his Lynyrd Skynyrd T-shirt just makes for something incredibly cringy once you hear it in context.

And while LL does his best to act as the other side of the conversation, most of these rhymes feel more like they were written by Paisley and Cool James over here was just the rapper that they got to sing it. There's a lot of ugliness when it comes to racial tension, but it's made that much worse when you're not being careful about it. This is the kind of song that comes in trying to answer a lot of tough questions and then leaves you with more questions than you had going in.