Thanks to Beyoncé, country music is at the center of the zeitgeist. Queen Bey’s third concept album Cowboy Carter came in hot, scorching feathers and forced everyone, country fan or not, music fan or not, to stop, drop, and roll. The most awarded artist in Grammy history has unleashed a thoroughly Black country album as act ii to her platinum-selling Renaissance record, and it is nothing short of a reclamation of a stolen legacy and a hat-tip to a time before the country genre was carved up along racial lines.
Cowboy Carter showcases not only Beyoncé’s range as a singer songwriter but also dares to highlight other Black female bright lights in country, folk, bluegrass, and Americana. Her eighth solo album encompasses all elements of country music for the seasoned ear and also welcomes the newcomers who continue to deny Black artists space in a mostly white bastion of music. But it’s still doing more than that. Cowboy Carter demonstrates the ineffectiveness of musical boxes, proving once again that good music (and more) defies race, gender, and genre classification.
Race was rearing its insidious head in the record industry back in 1928 just as DeFord Bailey became the first Black musician to have a major recording session in Nashville, Tenn. Bailey used his harmonica to imitate the sound of a rolling locomotive in “Pan American Blues.” He then went on to be the first Black country musician to perform at the Grand Ole Opry, “the show that made country music famous,” founded just a few years earlier in 1925. Known as the Harmonica Wizard, he’d also come of age in Tennessee playing “Black hillbilly” music—a style of music incorporating rhythms played by both rural Blacks and rural whites. Even after the invention of race records, Bailey remained the first Black artist to be played on WSM Barn Dance (later the Grand Ole Opry radio station), a notoriously white male platform for white male artists. By the time DeFord Bailey began his long, singular performance run at the Grand Ole Opry, race records had been set in stone by the success of Mamie Smith’s “Crazy Blues” on OKeh Records in 1921. The division and monetization of recorded sound into blues and jazz for Black audiences and hillbilly or rock-n-roll music for whites was made possible by our American racial caste system and Jim Crow Segregation. But practically, the segregation was artificially instigated and enforced by white music executives—and the line from there to an Oklahoma radio station, KYLC, to refusing to play “Texas Hold’em,” the first single off Cowboy Carter more than 100 years later is a straight shot.
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The rejection: “Hi, we don’t play Beyoncé as we are a country music station” was posted on X, formerly Twitter, by a fan. The automatic dismissal of a Black woman, no matter that it’s Beyoncé (and she’s been wearing a cowboy hat for a minute now), speaks directly to the racial blinders in music. Maybe the country music station didn’t get the memo about “Texas Hold ‘Em” or maybe it was a knee-jerk reaction, rooted in unconscious bias that prevented them from even considering that Beyoncé could step out of her lane and venture into a genre synonymous (to them) with white conservative Christian values. The idea that it is possible to be both country and Black seems to be something a lot of white people are learning in real-time, though they were warned about Beyoncé’s Blackness when she sang about the hot sauce in her bag/swag. Even Saturday Night Live tried to put white people up on game during the “The Day Beyoncé Turned Black” skit.
One need look no further than Bey’s first area code 832 —aka Houston, Texas—and her bourbon-smoked southern accent to know that Beyoncé has deep country roots. Her mama, Tina Knowles, was her first stylist and the different looks she made for Destiny’s Child included rodeo-inspired duds. The trio performed live at the Houston Rodeo in 2001. Naysayers can also peruse Tina’s Instagram page where she shuts down haters with pictures of her daughters at the Black rodeo, riding horses, and letting the world know that the Knowles have always been proudly, unapologetically country. For what is cowboy culture? Riding horses, Black people ride. Line dancing, Cupid Shuffle, anyone? Competitions in rodeos? Myrtis Dightman was the first nationally-ranked bullfighter, followed by Charles Sampson. Winning rodeos? Look no further than eight-time world champion Fred Whitfield.
Overshadowed by Hollywood’s smothering depictions of cowboys as white and gunslinging, Black, indigenous, and Latinx rodeo culture remained anecdotal until 1972, when Cleo Hearn, the first Black Marlboro Man, produced Cowboys of Color Rodeo. He was also the first Black person to go to college on a rodeo scholarship. In 1984, the Bill Pickett Invitational Rodeo was born—named for Bill Pickett, an American Black cowboy star and originator of bulldogging, a technique where riders wrestle a steer to the ground. Founded by Lu Vason to excavate the presence and contributions of Black people in the American West, the Bill Pickett Invitational Rodeo features Black rodeo queens just like the one on the cover of Cowboy Carter. Despite the best efforts of gatekeepers to keep Blacks out of anything related to country traditions, “culture doesn’t behave that way, as we see with Rhiannon Giddens as she is helping to revitalize banjo and fiddle and black contributions to folk and old-time music,” says Dr. Birgitta Johnson, Ethnomusicologist at the University of South Carolina. Coincidentally, Grammy and Pulitzer prize winner Giddens is a folk singer and musician and the featured banjoist on “Texas Hold ‘Em.”
With the exception of jazz, blues, and gospel genres, Black musicians have been erased from the history of homegrown American music, including rock-n-roll, another musical genre appropriated by white Americans and Europeans, this time, in the 1950s. There is no Elvis Presley without Roy Hamilton, a Black singer-songwriter whose style of semi-operatic singing was borrowed by Presley. In their beginning, the Rolling Stones were an R&B and blues cover band playing Black sound and performing Black dance moves for white audiences in the United Kingdom. With a redlined record industry firmly in place by the mid-20th century, outliers like the literal inventors of the form, Little Richard and Chuck Berry notwithstanding, Black country and rock-n-roll artists were pushed to the margins. The exception that proves this rule is Country Music Association (CMA) award winner Darius Rucker, former lead singer of rock band Hootie & The Blowfish, whose Grammy-winning debut album, Cracked Rearview went platinum 21 times in 1994. Rucker pivoted to country music as a solo artist in 2008 and never looked back. With multiple number-one country hits and an induction into the Grand Ole Opry in 2012, he is one of the few Black artists, male or female, to successfully crossover. Now, there will be more. R&B turned country singer K. Michelle and all the other Black country musicians who came between Rucker and Beyoncé are doing God’s work and slowly opening the door. Enter country neophyte Beyoncé, who not only shot off the hinges with Cowboy Carter but is intentionally painting Black people back into the American country’s past, present, and future.
Starting from her recreation of a rodeo’s opening moments, where Bey makes a metaphorical Grand Entrance into the arena. Decked out in a white cowboy hat, red, white, and blue leather chaps and seated off the side of a white horse while carrying a matching gold-fringed American flag, Queen didn’t so much announce act ii: Cowboy Carter as she destroyed arbitrary, all Black anyway, distinctions. This image, coupled with “Texas Hold ‘Em’s” historic #1 debut on Billboard’s Hot Country Songs chart, solidifies her disruption (not destruction) of the music industry gatekeeper’s tight corral around the genre.
Culturally, Beyoncé masterfully used her own fame and the magnifying effect of social media to simultaneously promote, educate, and elevate the rich tradition of Black cowboy culture disguised as a 10-day countdown to guide the people into the light. act ii was five years in the making, and the first inkling that the next iteration of her album trilogy arrived as a Super Bowl LVIII Verizon commercial. In 59 seconds, she not only cheekily addressed the most prescient moment of our time: the 2024 election cycle, by nominating herself for president of the “Beyoncé States of America,” she also dropped new music. Standing in the fullness of being country, an American, a full citizen of these United States, and a trailblazing leader, Beyoncé steadfastly refuses to be marginalized or discriminated against on any basis, never mind sex or race. She stands strong in the promise of the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of a country notch on her leather belt, featuring a capital “B” on the buckle. Nothing she does is accidental and on Friday, March 29th, it all made sense.
For a song to be country, it must contain certain elements: string instruments, twangy vocals, confessionals, and folk harmonies, built off chord progressions from major chords. With its blues notes shaded by gospel, country is music of the people by the people. It is, in its most inclusive sense, a range of Black, white, mixed race, and queer kindred spirits inspired by heartfelt stories set to the pluck of a banjo, an instrument with African origins. It is this orientation, not race or gender or politics, that defines the cornerstone of a multiracial art form. Which makes Bey’s negative reception at the 2016 Country Music Awards so shocking and confusing. Performing alongside The Chicks, Beyoncé sang “Daddy Lessons,” her first country single. Perhaps it was seen as a thumb in the eye of whites who’d already canceled country trio The Chicks for going against conservative (country) norms and speaking out against the Iraq War. No matter why, a member of the audience openly displayed her displeasure spouting racist vitriol, “That Black bitch needs to get off the stage.”
“Black women within the infrastructure have been limited and this shapes how they interact and demonstrates the genre’s inability to make good on the promise of diversity,” says Dr. Charles Hughes, author of Country Soul: Making Music and Making Race in the American South, and Director of the Lynne and Henry Turley Memphis Center at Rhodes College. In 2016, Beyoncé was an outsider in every sense of the word. Ever the consummate professional, Bey dressed in a white sheer lace dress, and accompanied by Black musicians on violin, drums, trumpet, and guitar, smiled and finished the song that night. One thing she didn’t do? Beyoncé.did.not.forget.
Two years later, Lil Nas X would experience similar discrimination after the release of “Old Town Road.” Dr. Hughes adds, “Lil Nas X is another example who is not from within the country world, making a country record and making some people feel uneasy.” Being a queer Black man, Lil Nas X “blasted mainstream genre politics and the gatekeepers with his massive hit. He was a disruptor.” Black women were also disruptors of the segregated country genre when Linda Martell blew up the airwaves with her rendition of “Color Him Father” in 1970. Martell was the first Black female country singer to perform at the Grand Ole Opry, which was a significant feat considering the Grand Ladies of the Opry did not break the glass ceiling of membership in this white male-dominated institution until 1967. It has been hard to diversify the Grand Ole Opry, though Black male country artists like Rucker and Charlie Pride were some of the few. In fact, only three Black country artists—DeFord Bailey, Charlie Pride, and Ray Charles—were inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in the 20th century. The genre’s structural racism and its attendant limited access to mainstream symbols of success forced Black musicians to create their own organizations: Black Country Music Association to showcase Black country talent and build community for Black country artists in Nashville in the 1990s and early 2000; the Nashville Music Equality with a mission to “create an anti-racist environment in the Nashville music industry; and the Black Opry in 2021 to support and celebrate their own. A collective of 200 country, bluegrass, folk, blues, and Americana Black, queer, and bi-racial singers and songwriters at different stages of their careers, the Black Opry Revue tours the country with the same goal in mind – make good music. These artists are not so much blazing a trail but forging a highway…an on-ramp, to critical acclaim, fame, and the ability to earn an income like their white counterparts.
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Motivated by racism and misunderstanding, “Cowboy Carter and the Rodeo Chitlin’ Circuit” may be the result of the door slammed in Beyoncé’s face in 2016, but it’s also the triumph of an artist intent on reintroducing Black people as a source of country music. An inclusive album, country music idols Linda Martel, Willie Nelson, Miley Cyrus, and the godmother of our country, Dolly Parton, are featured alongside Glam Country Artist Tanner Adell and harmonica/banjo/guitar player Willie Jones. Beyoncé is known for making room for others, giving Black women jobs as roadies and other résumé boosters that “enables them to find work, take care of their families and elevate their craft once the tour is over,” observes Dr. Johnson. Because Beyoncé lifts as she climbs, her legacy is assured as she catapults Black country into the stratosphere.
Although “Texas Hold ‘Em” was the first cut off the album, “16 Carriages” directly followed with a slow, heart-rending tale of growing up too fast, leaving home, and an unquenchable pain a woman can only share with God. This seemingly autobiographical ballad like 20th century Black Renaissance poet Langston Hughes’ “Life For Me Ain’t Been No Crystal Stair,” reminds listeners that Black women are summarily underestimated in every undertaking except poverty. But working to the bone is what Black women do and Beyoncé is no exception. She has a dizzying work ethic and a kind of strength that is almost frightening, to borrow from Dr. Maya Angelou. The religious underpinning of “16 Carriages” illuminates Beyoncé’s faith as well as her faith in herself, her artistry, and her fans. Without question, Cowboy Carter entered the country sphere as a tsunami, but it will be known forever as “not a country album but a Beyoncé album.”
While Beyoncé is not the first Black woman to cast her hat in the country ring, her entry will reverberate for decades. Mrs. Carter’s debut country album will resurrect discourse around boxes maintained by music gatekeepers and elevate crooners who have punctured the country bubble last century and today. Already, the mere mention of Cowboy Carter has caused excitement and welcomed possibilities for folk musician Tray Wellington, a banjo player from Ash County, North Carolina. His 2022 album, Black Banjo, was the legacy of listening to country, bluegrass, and folk tradition, his grandpa’s music. “Many Black households were the total sum of watching Soul Train, Hee Haw, Lawrence Welk, and I’ll add Bobby Jones,” says Memphian Wendy Moten, who was a 2021 runner-up on NBC’s The Voice. Despite being raised on this musical gumbo, the marketing ploy of “race records” tricked whites and Blacks into believing that strict racial classifications were as real as the social construct of race itself. But Wellington emphasizes, “This is my music, too.”
In the report, “Redlining of Country Music 2.0: Representation in the Country Music Industry in 2021 and 2022,” Dr. Jade E. Watson writes, “Here, as before, the results show the continued cultural redlining of BIPOC artists in the industry and the various ways in which current practices perpetuate the white racial framing of Country music culture.” Deeply researched, this report was released in 2023, eight years after a singer named Mickey Guyton was positioned to take country music by storm. In 2015, Guyton was making a name for herself and prognosticators predicted she would be the one. Dr. Hughes’ 2015 Washington Post’s opinion piece, “Country music’s next star is a young black woman. That’s not as ‘Crazy’ as it sounds.,” was a hopeful belief that the United States of America had moved far enough forward to embrace a Black female country singer-songwriter on top of a Black President, but the prophecy was not to be.
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By 2022, white fatigue set in, and performative acts of diversity, spawned by the Racial Reckoning and 2020’s COVID-19 pandemic, stalled. Though given the green light, Guyton acknowledged her place “in a long line of black performers who’ve pushed country’s real and perceived color lines.” Even folk musician Tracy Chapman didn’t reach #1 until country star Luke Combs put her seminal “Fast Car,” in his voice, back onto the airwaves in 2023. Ms. Chapman won a Grammy herself with that song for Best Female Pop Vocalist in 1989 but was not nominated in the country or folk categories. “Fast Car” was a song for everyone, hence the pop designation. The explosion of Combs’ 2023 version earned her a Country Music Association Award Song of the Year Award, the first ever for a Black songwriter, and Combs won Single of the Year. Without question, Combs used his white privilege as an avatar of country music to remake an amazing song and pay homage to Chapman, a Black queer singer-songwriter. But Combs’ intentionality combined with that privilege was essential, read:white conservatives to get out of their own way and meaningfully embrace the song and Chapman. In a divisive election cycle with people nervous about who will stay or return to the White House, “our country needs more white men like Luke Combs to share the wealth,” says Gina Miller, record label head, musician and talent manager in Nashville.
Where Guyton was polite about Nashville’s failure to share the stage with Black country, folk, bluegrass, Americana, queer, and mixed-race artists, Beyoncé can name it. As an international icon, she can take another bat to racism, stereotypes, and genre bend or blend to her heart’s content. Cowboy Carter will represent in a way Guyton could not, but she will undoubtedly benefit from Beyoncé, who understands that representation matters in terms of economics and career longevity for Black artists.
Act ii follows huge hits, HBCU drumlines, the continued celebration of queer lives, and a look at life behind the diamond-studded curtain of her marriage. Beyoncé Giselle Knowles-Carter has evolved before our eyes, dropping albums when she felt like it, killing us with dance tracks, sensuality, and putting too many people on to name. Knowing she will always pump fake the haters, Beyoncé has reclaimed a hostile genre on behalf of Black, mixed-race, blues, rock-n-roll, country, bluegrass, Americana, and queer artists all over the world. Atop this new intersection of race, gender and country, may Cowboy Carter deliver on her hope that “years from now, the mention of an artist’s race, as it relates to releasing music, will be irrelevant.”
Ready or not, Beyoncé is taking everybody with her wherever she wants to go.
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