Beyonce leaves the Luar fashion show at 154 Scott in Brooklyn during Latest York Fashion Week on February 13, 2024 in Latest York City.
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Country music, meet Cowboy Carter.
Superstar singer-songwriter Beyoncé Knowles is foraying into country music — taking over a genre that has excluded women of color for many years and in the method proving its listeners have a powerful interest in Black female artists. Her country music era, launched during a Super Bowl ad in mid-February and headlined by an upcoming album, is broadening the industry’s listenership and igniting streaming numbers for songs by other Black female country artists.
Country star Tanner Adell, a Black artist, saw U.S. streams of her track “Buckle Bunny” soar 305% in the course of the first week of March, in keeping with data from Spotify. One other song from Adell, “Trailer Park Barbie,” saw a 130% jump in streams, the music streaming company said.
Other Black female country artists like Mickey Guyton and Reyna Roberts saw boosts too, and Knowles’ own country-esque song “Daddy Lessons,” off her sixth studio pop album, “Lemonade,” spiked 540% in streams the day after her two country singles were released last month, Spotify reported.
“Texas Hold ‘Em,” one among those singles, made her the primary Black woman to say the No. 1 spot on Billboard’s Hot Country chart, in keeping with the famed music magazine.
That song and her second recent country hit, “16 Carriages,” will appear on “Act II: Cowboy Carter.” Knowles announced the album title in a Tuesday post on her website. It follows “Act I: Renaissance” and serves because the second installment to a three-part project.
Knowles’ album announcement was a “pinnacle moment in time,” in keeping with The Latest York Times bestselling creator, country songwriter and lecturer Alice Randall, who was the primary Black woman to write down a No.1 song for an artist on the Hot Country chart, back in 1994.
“Beyoncé is signaling that Black women have been in country music almost because the starting,” Randall said. “We have now finally broken through the redlining that kept us out of the charts.”
Breaking into country
Acceptance for artists of color in country music stays a challenge, though, — even for Knowles, whose recorded songs are mostly categorized as pop and R&B.
While some music critics praised Knowles’ country tracks, other fans of the genre kept away from a warm welcome.
Two days after the discharge of “Texas Hold ‘Em” — coined as a “pop-country” track with elements from folk musician Rhiannon Giddens on the banjo — pop radio stations played the track 49 times, in keeping with an X post by the radio industry tracker U.S. Radio Updater. But country stations played it only twice, in keeping with the post.
Beyoncé fans — collectively often called the “BeyHive” — called in to an Oklahoma country station protesting the broadcaster’s initial rejection of a request to play “Texas Hold ‘Em.” In a separate occasion, a fan reported hearing a radio host comment that while the song is country and the instruments are country, “something else about it makes me think it isn’t country.”
Of the greater than 2,100 artists played on country radio stations from 2002 to 2020, only about 1.5% were Black, compared with about 98% who were white, in keeping with a report from SongData on representation in country music. Other artists of color, including those that identified as Hispanic, Indigenous, biracial or Filipino, made up about 1% of artists played.
Beyond just radio, Black artists and artists of color represented lower than 4% of country songs played on the radio, airplay, charting songs, artists signed to major labels and award nominations, in keeping with SongData.
Within the areas where artists of color did make strides over those 20 years — gaining 3.2 percentage points within the share of songs played — the advances overwhelmingly benefited male artists of color, in keeping with SongData. Among the many artists of color whose songs received airplay, the report found that lower than 3% were songs by women.
Some observers have argued the resistance to Knowles’ recent music stems from racism and political bias.
“Artists of color are releasing great music that sparks an incredible conversation but hasn’t shifted the underlying limitations and racist format of the mainstream country radio,” said Jocelyn Neal, professor and department chair of music on the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill.
Country artists akin to Maren Morris, Luke Combs and Kacey Musgraves have taken a more progressive approach than the normal themes of beer, pickup trucks and rural living. Black LGBTQ hip-hop artist Lil Nas X dabbled within the genre with a “country-influenced” track, “Old Town Road.” The song was enmeshed in a racial debate after being faraway from the Billboard Hot Country chart in 2019 after it was claimed the song lacked country elements compared to other songs from the chart.
Lil Nas X performs onstage during WiLD 94.9’s FM’s Jingle Ball 2019 at The Masonic Auditorium on December 08, 2019 in San Francisco, California.
Tim Mosenfelder
Political tensions have flared within the country music industry for many years, as newer and more liberal artists attempt to transition away from the genre’s “conservative” roots, Neal said. The genre’s fan base has long skewed conservative, she said.
Knowles — together with superstar Taylor Swift, who each had mega years in 2023 — received a better percentage of negative rankings from registered Republicans than some other demographic of voters, across political affiliation, race and age, in keeping with an NBC News poll. Of voters polled, 34% had a negative stance on Knowles, while 16% had a positive view. Greater than 40% of Republicans were neutral. Amongst registered Democrats who were polled, just 5% had a negative stance on Knowles and greater than half had a positive view.
Beyoncé previously drew heat from country fans after the Houston native’s 2016 live performance of “Daddy Lessons” on the CMA Awards. She was joined by female country power group The Chicks, who made headlines within the early 2000s for speaking out against then-Republican President George Bush and the U.S. invasion of Iraq.
Younger listeners feeling the western vibe
As Beyoncé helps break the country mold, she’s inviting a younger audience into the western genre.
One such fan, Tenley Patterson, 26, said she didn’t hassle listening to country music before Beyoncé’s releases, but was impressed with the country tracks.
“It isn’t like country music I’ve heard before; it has a twang to it,” Patterson said. “It has been slowly peaking my interest within the genre.”
While the typical country music listener is a member of the child boomer generation, those born between 1946 and 1964, in keeping with music data firm Luminate, there’s been a newfound interest amongst listeners who’re a part of Generation Z — those born between 1997 to 2012 — and millennials, two generations reported to be more diverse than older age groups.
Country music basically saw a rise of 20 billion streams, a 24% year-over-year spike, from 2022 to 2023, in keeping with Luminate.
Spotify’s Nashville team, which monitors the music streaming giant’s country genre, said it saw an increase in Gen Z and millennial listeners in response to Knowles’ entrance. Rachel Whitney, head of editorial for the Nashville team, said playlists outside of the country genre are playing Knowles’ country tracks, broadening its reach.
The Beyoncé draw can be boosting exposure for other artists on some lists, like Lainey Wilson and Cody Johnson, who’ve more “traditional” country songs, Whitney said.
“It’s amazing to see how country is connecting with younger listeners,” Whitney said. “We are able to support that with our playlists and be sure that we’re not making country this one specific sound.”
(L-R) Beyoncé and Jay-Z attend the 66th GRAMMY Awards at Crypto.com Arena on February 04, 2024 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Kevin Mazur/Getty Images for The Recording Academy)
Kevin Mazur | Getty Images
Apart from Knowles, pop stars including Lana Del Rey and Post Malone are reportedly preparing to release country albums, in keeping with Billboard. The news source says Ed Sheeran also might be releasing a rustic project within the near term.
UNC’s Neal, herself a Beyoncé fan, described the star’s profession path as trailblazing, but said the push for diversity in country music requires multiple superstar.
“Historical evidence suggests it takes multiple successful artist to maneuver the needle on what’s truthfully 100 years of genre formation,” Neal said.