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Genre gap Beyoncé's new album falls short
The Guardian Weekly
|April 12, 2024
Cowboy Carter arrives on the back of booming business for the country genre, drowning out the Black music history it claims to celebrate
On the first track of Beyoncé's new album, she seems to state the impetus behind the project: "They used to say I spoke too country/ Then the rejection came, said I wasn't country 'nough." That rejection is assumed to be her performance of her song Daddy Lessons with the Chicks at the 2016 Country Music awards. It prompted a racist backlash from parts of the country establishment.
Cowboy Carter is Beyoncé's 27-track response. In the few details she has shared about the album, she said she "did a deeper dive into the history of country music and studied our rich musical archive". As she became the first Black female artist to have a US country No 1 and top the Billboard Hot 100 with a country song, debate over her place in the genre reigned.
This story is from the April 12, 2024 edition of The Guardian Weekly.
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