06/03/24

When country listeners think of country, who comes to mind? We have the typical Carrie Underwood, Jason Aldean, Dolly Parton, Tim McGraw, and Garth Brooks. But what about Tanner Adell, Lil Nas X, and debatably, Beyonce? Have we forgotten that the original cowboys were people of color? How have we forgotten the enslaved Africans who would ride around on horses with their cattle dogs? How have we forgotten the Mexican Vaqueros, the Indigenous Mexican Men?

So, it is only fitting that Beyonce has broken into the music genre of country. Let’s not forget about her roots, and no I’m not talking about hair roots, I’m talking about where she came from. Beyonce is from Houston, Texas, and just as she so fiercely described in her song “Formation”, her mama is from Louisiana and her daddy is from Alabama. The Southern roots are deep in her family. Country has been branded as a Southern charm, as the music of the South, so why can’t Beyonce be considered country? Black people from the South have a bluesy, southern charm to their music. One that highlights the oppression that their community has gone through and also speaks about the blatant brutality that this community has experienced in the South. Black country music has an eerie undertone to it because it is a political warcry steeped in all of the tears and bloodshed of the Deep South and not only the Deep South, but the experiences that people of color hold in America as a whole.

No one really batted an eye when Lil Nas X hit the billboards with “Country Road.” That song was catchy and Lil Nas X wore the country attire well. In the remix of Country Road, Lil Nas X featured a famous country singer, Billy Ray Cyrus. Just as Beyonce is struggling with her new album, Cowboy Carter being considered country, Lil Nas X struggled with the same thing. In 2019, because Country Road had elements of hip hop in it, it was removed from the country charts because “it didn’t embrace enough elements of today’s country music to chart in its current form.” It is unfortunate that black people, and especially women of color are pushed out of the country industry because their music is deemed as “not country enough.” Maybe the world just isn’t ready to hear the southern twang of the African American South.  If Beyonce had included some features of popular country singers, would that have eased the criticisms of her albums? However, Beyonce is popular enough to be able to stand alone on an album.

The headquarters of the country genre is known to be in Tennessee; it is the home of country music. But it’s also an exclusive club, made for white males by white males. White women have experienced a hard time as well making a break in the country music industry because of the exclusivity the genre holds and what the radio statistics are reporting. Many listeners of country music prefer a male audience, so in turn the producers deliver a male audience. However, after Beyonce released Cowboy Carter, ratings on Spotify for black female country singers like Tanner Adell and Brittney Spencer are on the rise. Beyonce created Cowboy Carter because of an experience where “she did not feel welcome” years ago. One can only suspect that she is talking about the 2016 Country Music Awards when she performed “Daddy Lessons” with the Chicks. This wasBeyonce’s first attempt to break into the country genre, but she was met with extreme hostility as racist Tweets poured in. Beyonce and The Dixie Chicks’ performance was erased from the CMA site after receiving all of these comments. But then after receiving an onslaught of criticism for removing the performance, CMA put the performance back on the site.

Beyonce also included a country twang by adding the banjo to the song Texas Hold ‘Em. The banjo has roots native to Africa and was created by enslaved Africans and their ancestors in the Caribbean. Rhiannon Giddens played her banjo on Texas Hold ‘Em and she likes to remind people of the instrument’s African roots. Not only is Cowboy Carter unapologetically country in its own way, it is a political testimony to what has happened to people of color throughout the country. Her song YA YA is a political testimony for people to remember to face the harsh reality of living in America. In her first verse of YA YA, Beyonce says that there’s a whole lot of red in the white and blue, alluding to all of the people of color who have died in the history of America. YA YA isn’t your typical country song because it isn’t soft on the ears with the reminders of America’s dark past; some listeners aren’t ready to hear that yet and Beyonce’s Cowboy Carter album clearly showed that.