How The West Was Fun

Yeehaw fashion—a gleeful, glittery hip-hop remix of country and western style—has taken the music world by storm.

- Kelsey McKinney

Sometimes it takes the right moniker to crystallize a fashion moment—think “normcore,” “athleisure,” or “millennial pink.” When Bri Malandro, a Texas-based pop-culture archivist, came across images of the R&B singer Ciara sporting westernwear, she coined her own: “The yee haw agenda is in full effect,” she tweeted. Malandro then started an Instagram account, @theyeehawagenda, which functions as a celebration of the black cowboy aesthetic in popular culture. Her feed juxtaposes current images of Houston natives Megan Thee Stallion and Solange Knowles with throwback shots of, say, Beyoncé circa Destiny’s Child in a cowboy hat on the cover of Texas Music, or Mariah Carey wearing one on the cover of Rolling Stone in 1998. There’s even a picture of Bernie Mac in a bolo tie.

The hyperembellished, look-at-me version of country style that yeehaw describes began its ascent in recent years, and it’s a trend that has trickled up from the music industry to the wider world. Solange incorporated cowboy imagery into the 33-minute film she created as a companion piece to her album