Editor’s Note: A version of this story first appeared in The Good, the Bad, and the Elegy, a newsletter from the Daily Yonder focused on the best, and worst, in rural media, entertainment, and culture. Every other Thursday, it features reviews, retrospectives, recommendations, and more. You can join the mailing list at the bottom of this article to receive future editions in your inbox.
Beyoncé’s latest album, “Cowboy Carter,” is out. Folks everywhere are hootin’ and hollerin’ back and forth about what this record, “act ii” of her three-part “Renaissance” project, means and what it accomplishes for Black country artists. It’s a contentious and important conversation, with racial oppression, cultural redlining, and lost history at the forefront.
A windstorm of questions has been whipping around the internet over the past few weeks: Is Beyoncé country enough? Is she saving the country genre? Did Black people create country music? Did Queen Bey reclaim country music for Black folks? Does the album art represent a reclamation of the imagery of Black cowboys and rodeos, or a platforming of racist, imperialist systems to pander to white audiences? What is country music? Who gets to make country music? Who gets to be country?
The Daily Yonder itself contributed to this discussion in two recent newsletters, and in continued coverage on the intersection of Black and rural identities.
In terms of confronting the many questions “Cowboy Carter” raises, the album’s limited press campaign and imperfect execution offer more confusion than answers. One thing is clear though: this is a Beyoncé album through and through.
Country Grammar
When Beyoncé first teased a country album during a Super Bowl commercial — alongside the release of two singles, “TEXAS HOLD ‘EM” and “16 CARRIAGES” — critics immediately rejected the singer’s country identity.
The backlash hearkened back to the 2016 Country Music Association (CMA) Awards, when Beyoncé shared the stage for a performance of her country song “Daddy Lessons” with The Chicks.
“SHE DOES NOT BELONG!!!!” one viewer said. “When have they ever invited ANY country singer to their BET awards…NEVER!!!!”
It was this experience that inspired Beyoncé to explore country music more deeply in the first place, the singer said on Instagram.
“The criticisms I faced when I first entered this genre forced me to propel past the limitations that were put on me,” she wrote. “act ii is a result of challenging myself, and taking my time to bend and blend genres together to create this body of work.”
Beyoncé isn’t the first artist to bend and blend genres. In fact, many of country music’s greatest stars and legends have explored sounds from different popular genres.
It’s impossible to deny the influence of Rock music in songs from musicians like Charlie Daniels and Eric Church; or the Pop inspiration in the discography of Dolly Parton and Kelsea Ballerini; or the R&B/Hip-Hop influences on artists like Sam Hunt and Jelly Roll. But all these artists are white southerners who don’t have to defend their country identity.
It’s no secret that country music has a sordid racial history. Before popular music became a commodified industry, the early sounds of folk music were a combination of impoverished Black and white culture in the American South, with influences of African, Celtic, and evangelical Christian music.
When popular music shifted from art to commodity, music producers and executives split the market into two categories: “race records” made by and marketed for Black folks and “hillbilly music” by and for rural white folks.
After World War II, hillbilly records were rebranded as the “country” music genre we recognize today. While Black musicians were restricted from releasing music within the new genre, their influence persisted.
Early stars like Hank Williams, known as the “Father of Country Music,” and The Carter Family, country music’s “First Family,” learned melodies and techniques from Black musicians like Lesley Riddle and Rufus “Tee-Tot” Payne. One of Johnny Cash’s early mentors was Gus Cannon, who had to mask his racial identity on country records in the 1920s.
Black influence didn’t come solely in the form of benevolent mentors or band members. Minstrel shows, where white performers wore blackface to ridicule Black music and culture was pervasive from the time of slavery through the 20th century. This is when Black creativity and culture, like the banjo, first entered mainstream white culture. Minstrel shows were once popular at the Grand Ole Opry, commonly known as the most famous stage in country music.
In 2021, an alternative stage, the Black Opry, was founded by music journalist Holly G. to promote Black country artists.
Alice Randall, author of “My Black Country,” calls country music “a genre of Black influence, without Black presence.” Randall should know: she is the first Black woman to write a number-one country hit, “XXXs and OOOs,” performed by Trisha Yearwood.
Black women were especially denied access to writing rooms, recording studios, rodeo stages, airwaves, the charts, and the history books, Randall says.
Randall’s work raises important questions like Who can be country? Who can be rural? Who can be a “real American?”
“Genres are a funny little concept, aren’t they?” answers Linda Martell in the intro to “SPAGETTII”, a rap-forward track featured on “Cowboy Carter.” Martell is known as the first commercially successful female Black country artist and was the first to play the Grand Ole Opry in 1970.
The same could be said of geographic categories in the case of identifying rural, suburban, and urban communities. Sure, these labels can be helpful in determining how government programs may bias one group over the other, but all too often these labels are reduced to a single damaging stereotype like “rural white racists” or “urban Black criminals” that ignores the diversity and complexity that exists in every community across the country.
There is no one way to be country, or rural, or southern, or Black.
The truth of the matter is Black people have always and will always occupy rural spaces and country music.
As for Beyoncé, her “countryness” demands no scrutiny.
“Cowboy Carter” tackles that subject head on in the soaring album opener, “AMERIICAN REQUIEM.”
In the song, Beyoncé mourns the idea of what she thinks America and country music could be and encourages a change in the way we view those systemically oppressive systems, even as those systems were built in large part through the creativity and labor of Black people.
She reminds her critics that she’s the granddaughter of a moonshiner from Gadsden, Alabama and that she has relatives rooted in Galveston, Texas and Louisiana.
“Used to say I spoke too country,” she sings. “And the rejection came, said I wasn’t country enough.
“Said I wouldn’t saddle up,” she continues. “But if that ain’t country, tell me, what is?”
After the outrage from her CMA performance, Beyoncé put her money where her mouth is. She took that rejection and turned it into an album, joining the ranks of country outlaws like Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings, Merle Haggard, and Willie Nelson, who all fought for creative freedom outside of the Nashville establishment.
If being an outlaw ain’t country, what is?
Bey in the Bonnet
On the flipside, the “BeyHive” — the community of Beyoncé’s most ardent fans — has been buzzing since Beyoncé’s Super Bowl announcement, claiming that “Queen Bey” is saving a dying genre and reclaiming country music for Black people. Respectfully, she is doing no such thing.
There’s no denying Beyoncé’s country roots or her ability to make a powerful and entertaining country album, but her doing so doesn’t make her country music’s saving grace. Asserting such a claim minimizes the accomplishments of other Black country artists who dedicated their entire careers to transforming the genre.
From early musicians like Lesley Riddle and Rufus Payne to pioneers like Charley Pride, the first Black country artist to have a number one record, and Tracy Chapman, who recently became the first Black person to win the CMA’s Song of the Year award for “Fast Car,” there is a strong contingent who have spent their careers carving out spaces for Black artists in the genre. This advocacy work has continued with contemporary artists like Mickey Guyton, Amythyst Kiah, Allison Russell, and Rissi Palmer, just to name a few.
In fact, there are several moments on the album in which Beyoncé works with these Black country artists, both old and new.
“BLACKBIIRD” features backing vocals from Tanner Adell, Brittany Spencer, Tiera Kennedy, and Reyna Roberts. “SMOKE HOUR ☆ WILLIE NELSON” samples songs from legends Son House, Rosetta Tharpe, Chuck Berry, and Roy Hamilton. Willie Jones and Shaboozey, two up and coming artists are featured in the album, as well.
But if a primary goal of “Cowboy Carter” is to center Black country artistry, it could’ve – and should’ve – gone farther.
From the lyrics in the more political songs on the album like “AMERIICAN REQUIEM” and the songs that are more personal to her background like “16 CARRIAGES” to her announcement post, she seems to want to show the validity of Black artists having space in the country genre – but what she mostly manages to do is show that she has space in the genre, relegating Black artists to the margins and putting white artists on pedestals.
Seeing big ticket names like Dolly Parton, Willie Nelson, Miley Cyrus, and Post Malone is an exciting sight, but feels out of place on the project. Samples from songs like Nancy Sinatra’s “These Boots Are Made for Walkin’, The Beach Boys’ “Good Vibrations,” and Patsy Cline’s “I Fall to Pieces” similarly fall flat in the context of this album.
On top of that, the album includes two full-length covers, both from white artists: the Beatles’ “Blackbird” and Dolly Parton’s “Jolene.” While both tunes share powerful messages, the failure to include a single cover from a Black country legend like Martell or Pride is a glaring misstep, one that’s hard to forgive when it comes from an exceedingly intentional artist like Beyoncé.
Ultimately, “Cowboy Carter” seems to be a one-off foray into the genre for Beyoncé, an excursion that may be healing on a personal level and exciting to the industry, but all roads still seem to lead back to herself. With her substantial stature in the music industry and her immense influence over popular culture, Beyoncé could have done something life-changing for many small Black country artists by featuring them more prominently in collabs to highlight their vocal ability (like the full verse-chorus solo given to Miley Cyrus) or covering one of their songs to highlight their writing prowess. Instead, four amazing Black female country artists share nigh indistinguishable background vocals and a shared verse on a Beatles song.
Does “Cowboy Carter” need to be a purely Black project? Not necessarily. While the more poignant message of the album would be to highlight the space that Black artists have carved in the genre, Beyoncé herself admits that the album isn’t even necessarily about the genre itself, saying on Instagram: “This ain’t a Country album. This is a Beyoncé album.”
Giddy Up
Thus, the biggest success of “Cowboy Carter” has been its ability to start a conversation. More people than ever are talking about Black country music and the experiences of Black rural folks. This is an important step for not only Black artists, but also for Black fans of the genre.
Some Black fans of country music, who don’t know many other Black people who engage with the genre and who have encountered confusion or dismissiveness from white fans say they are “hopeful that Beyoncé and ‘Cowboy Carter’ … will help elevate Black country artists and serve as a bridge for more Black people to feel comfortable listening.”
This kind of revolution can really only be led by someone like Beyoncé, which speaks to the very heart of the issue. It’s a shame that other Black country artists, who have certainly released great country music of their own, rivaling or exceeding Beyoncé’s foray, have been largely ignored by the industry and the public for decades.
Whether you look at this album as a renaissance — to borrow Beyoncé’s term — or a reclamation of Black culture in country music isn’t really important. Frankly, getting overly caught up in those semantics only continues to center an already mega-famous superstar in a conversation about representation for other aspiring and overlooked Black artists in the industry.
Beyoncé started this national conversation. Now it’s up to the folks in the industry and fans to turn our collective focus towards the many talented Black artists who will continue to make country music, even after Beyoncé moves on to her next act.
Lane Wendell Fischer reports on education, culture, and rural life for the Daily Yonder. Tarel Dean Dennie studies Black representation in media at Yale University.
This article first appeared in The Good, the Bad, and the Elegy, an email newsletter from the Daily Yonder focused on the best, and worst, in rural media, entertainment, and culture. Every other Thursday, it features reviews, recommendations, retrospectives, and more. Join the mailing list today to have future editions delivered straight to your inbox.
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