Beyonce leaves the Luar fashion show at 154 Scott in Brooklyn during New York Fashion Week on February 13, 2024 in New York City.
James Devaney | GC Images | Getty Images
Country music, meet Cowboy Carter.
Superstar singer-songwriter Beyoncé Knowles is breaking into country music — embracing a genre that has excluded women of color for decades, and in the process proving that her listeners have a strong interest in black female artists. Her country music era, launched during a Super Bowl commercial in mid-February and headlined by an upcoming album, is expanding the industry’s audience and sparking streaming numbers for songs by other black female country artists.
Country star Tanner Adell, a black artist, saw US streams of her track “Buckle Bunny” soar 305% in the first week of March, according to data from Spotify. Another song from Adell, “Trailer Park Barbie,” saw a 130 percent jump in streams, the music streaming company said.
Other black country artists such as Mickey Guyton and Reyna Roberts also saw a boost, and Knowles’ country-tinged song “Daddy Lessons,” from her sixth studio pop album, “Lemonade,” saw a 540 percent increase in streams the next day from her country. The singles were released last month, Spotify said.
“Texas Hold’Em,” one of those singles, made her the first black woman to claim the No. 1 spot on Billboard’s Hot Country chart, according to the prestigious music magazine.
That song and her second recent country hit, “16 Carriages,” will be featured “Act II: Cowboy Carter”. Knowles announced the album’s title on Tuesday Position on her website. It follows “Act I: Renaissance” and serves as the second installment in a three-part work.
Knowles’ album announcement was a “tip in time,” according to New York Times writer, country songwriter and lecturer Alice Randall, who was the first black woman to write a No. 1 song for an artist in Hot Country charts. , in 1994.
“Beyoncé has been signaling that black women have been involved in country music since almost the beginning,” Randall said. “We’ve finally crossed the red line that kept us off the charts.”
Invasion of the country
Acceptance of artists of color in country music remains a challenge, however — even for Knowles, whose recorded songs are mostly categorized as pop and R&B.
While some music critics praised Knowles’ country tracks, others fans of the genre avoided a warm welcome.
Two days after the release of “Texas Hold’Em” — coined as “pop-countrytrack featuring folk musician Rhiannon Giddens on banjo — pop radio stations played the track 49 times, according to a X post by radio industry watchdog US Radio Updater. But country stations only played it twice, according to the post.
Beyoncé fans — known collectively as the “BeyHive” — called a rural Oklahoma station to protest the station’s original rejection a request to play “Texas Hold’Em.” On another occasion, a fan reported hearing a radio host comment that while the song is country and the instrumentation is country, “something else makes me think it’s not country.”
Of the more than 2,100 artists who played on the nation’s radio stations from 2002 to 2020, only about 1.5 percent were black, compared to about 98 percent who were white, according to report from SongData on representation in country music. Other artists of color, including those who identified as Hispanic, Native, biracial, or Filipino, made up about 1% of the artists who performed.
Beyond radio, black artists and artists of color accounted for less than 4% of country songs played at radio, airplay, charting, major-label signings and award nominations, according to SongData .
In areas where artists of color made leaps during those two decades — gaining 3.2 percentage points in share of songs played — progress overwhelmingly benefited male artists of color, according to SongData. Among artists of color whose songs received airplay, the report found that less than 3% were songs by women.
Some observers have argued that the resistance to Knowles’ recent music stems from racism and political bias.
“Artists of color are putting out great music that sparks a great conversation, but it hasn’t shifted the underlying limitations and racist format of mainstream country radio,” said Jocelyn Neal, professor and chair of the department of music at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. .
Country artists such as Maren Morris, Luke Combs and Kacey Musgraves have taken a more progressive approach away from the traditional themes of beer, pickup trucks and farm life. Black LGBTQ hip-hop artist Lil Nas X tackled the genre with a “country-influenced” track, “Old Town Road.” The the song became embroiled in a racial debate after it was removed from the Billboard Hot Country chart in 2019 after it was argued that the song lacked country elements compared to other songs on the chart.
Lil Nas X performs on stage during WiLD 94.9 FM’s Jingle Ball 2019 at The Masonic Auditorium on December 8, 2019 in San Francisco, California.
Tim Mosenfelder
Political tensions have simmered in the country music industry for decades as younger and more liberal artists try to move away from the genre’s “conservative” roots, Neal said. The genre’s fan base has long skewed conservative, he said.
Knowles — along with superstar Taylor Swift, who both had big years in 2023 — received a higher percentage of negative ratings from registered Republicans than any other voter demographic, by political affiliation, race and age, according to the NBC News. voting. Of voters polled, 34% had a negative view of Knowles, while 16% had a positive view. More than 40% of Republicans were neutral. Among registered Democrats polled, just 5 percent had an unfavorable view of Knowles, and more than half had a favorable view.
Beyoncé previously drew heat from country fans after performing Houston’s “Daddy Lessons” live at the 2016 CMA Awards. She was joined by female country power group The Chicks, who made headlines in the early 2000s for speaking out against then-Republican President George W. Bush and the US invasion of Iraq.
Younger listeners feel the western vibe
As Beyoncé helps break the country mold, she invites a younger audience to the western genre.
One such fan, 26-year-old Tenley Patterson, said she didn’t bother listening to country music before Beyoncé’s releases, but was impressed with her country songs.
“It’s not like the country music I’ve heard before; it’s got a hustle,” Patterson said. “My interest in the genre is slowly peaking.”
While the average country music listener is a member of the baby boomer generation, those born between 1946 and 1964, according to music data company Luminate, there has been a renewed interest among listeners who belong to Generation Z — those born between 1997 and 2012 — and millennials, two generations are reported to have been more diverse from older age groups.
Country music overall saw an increase of 20 billion streams, a 24% year-over-year increase, from 2022 to 2023, according to Luminate.
Spotify’s team in Nashville, which oversees the music streaming giant’s country genre, said it has seen an uptick in Gen Z and millennial listeners in response to Knowles’ entrance. Rachel Whitney, head of editorial for the Nashville group, said playlists outside of the country genre are playing Knowles’ country tracks, broadening their appeal.
Beyoncé’s draw also boosts exposure for other artists on some charts, such as Lainey Wilson and Cody Johnson, who have more “traditional” country songs, Whitney said.
“It’s amazing to see how country is connecting with younger listeners,” Whitney said. “We can back that up with our playlists and make sure we’re not making country that particular sound.”
(LR) Beyoncé and Jay-Z attend the 66th Annual GRAMMY Awards at Crypto.com Arena on February 4, 2024 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Kevin Mazur/Getty Images for The Recording Academy)
Kevin Mazur | Getty Images
Besides Knowles, pop stars Including Lana Del Rey and Post Malone, they are reportedly preparing to release country albums, according to Billboard. The news source says Ed Sheeran could also release a country project in the near future.
UNC’s Neal, herself a Beyoncé fan, described the star’s career as groundbreaking, but said the push for diversity in country music takes more than one superstar.
“Historical evidence suggests that it takes more than one successful artist to move the needle on what is frankly 100 years of genre-shaping,” Neal said.