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 making a foray into country music – taking on a genre that has excluded women of color for decades and proving that her listeners have a strong interest in Black female artists. Her country music era, ushered in during a Super Bowl commercial in mid-February and capped by an upcoming album, is broadening the industry’s listenership and driving streaming numbers for songs by other Black female country artists.
Country star Tanner Adell, a Black artist, experienced a 305% increase in U.S. streams of her track “Buckle Bunny” during the first week of March, according to data from Spotify. Another Adell song, “Trailer Park Barbie,” saw a 130% increase in streams, according to the music streaming company.
Other Black female country artists like Mickey Guyton and Reyna Roberts also saw increases, and Knowles’ own country song “Daddy Lessons,” from her sixth studio pop album “Lemonade,” saw a spike in streams the day after her two country performances by 540% singles were released last month, Spotify reported.
“Texas Hold ‘Em,” one of those singles, made her the first black woman to hold the top spot on Billboard’s Hot Country chart, according to the famed music magazine.
This song and her second recent country hit, “16 Carriages,” will appear in “Act II: Cowboy Carter.” Knowles announced the album title in a Tuesday post on her website. It follows “Act I: Renaissance” and serves as the second part of a three-part project.
Knowles’ album announcement was a “royal moment in time,” according to New York Times bestselling author, country songwriter and educator Alice Randall, who became the first Black woman to write a No. 1 song for an artist on the Hot Country charts , in 1994.
“Beyoncé signals that black women have been represented in country music almost from the beginning,” Randall said. “We finally broke through the redlining that kept us off the charts.”
Breaking into the country
But acceptance of artists of color in country music remains a challenge — even for Knowles, whose recorded songs mostly fall into the pop and R&B categories.
While some music critics praised Knowles’ country titles, other fans of the genre refrained from giving him a warm welcome.
Two days after the release of “Texas Hold ‘Em” — coined as a “pop-country” track with elements of folk musician Rhiannon Giddens on banjo — pop radio stations played the track 49 times, according to an X radio industry tracker post US Radio Updater. However, according to the post, country stations only played it twice.
Beyoncé fans – collectively known as the “BeyHive” – called a country music station in Oklahoma to protest the station’s initial rejection of a request to play “Texas Hold ‘Em.” On another occasion, a fan reported hearing a radio host comment that although the song was country and the instruments were country, “there’s something else about it that makes me think it’s not country.”
According to a SongData report on representation in country music, of the more than 2,100 artists played on country radio stations from 2002 to 2020, only about 1.5% were Black, compared to about 98% white. Other artists of color, including those who identified as Hispanic, Indigenous, biracial or Filipino, made up about 1% of the artists played.
In addition to radio, Black artists and artists of color made up less than 4% of country songs played on radio, airplay, charts, artists signed to major labels and award nominations, according to SongData.
In the areas where artists of color made progress over these two decades, increasing 3.2 percentage points in share of songs played, the advances overwhelmingly benefited male artists of color, according to SongData. The report found that less than 3% of artists of color whose songs received airplay were songs by women.
Some observers argue that the opposition to Knowles’ recent music stems from racism and political bias.
“Artists of color are releasing great music that inspires great conversations, but does not change the fundamental limitations and racist format of mainstream country radio,” said Jocelyn Neal, professor and chair of music at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill.
Country artists like Maren Morris, Luke Combs and Kacey Musgraves have taken a more progressive approach than the traditional themes of beer, pickup trucks and country life. Black LGBTQ hip hop artist Lil Nas’s song was embroiled in a racist debate after it was removed from the Billboard Hot Country chart in 2019 due to claims that the song lacked country appeal compared to other songs on the chart. Elements were missing.
Lil Nas
Tim Mosenfelder
For decades, political tensions have flared in the country music industry as newer and more liberal artists seek to break away from the genre’s “conservative” roots, Neal said. The genre’s fan base has long been conservative, she said.
According to an NBC News poll, Knowles — along with superstar Taylor Swift, both of whom had a mega year in 2023 — received a higher percentage of negative ratings from registered Republicans than any other group of voters, regardless of political affiliation, race and age. Of voters surveyed, 34% had a negative view of Knowles, while 16% had a positive opinion. More than 40% of Republicans were neutral. Among registered Democrats surveyed, only 5% had a negative view of Knowles and more than half had a positive view.
Beyoncé previously drew the attention of country fans after the Houston native performed a live performance of “Daddy Lessons” 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 Bush and the U.S. invasion of Iraq.
Younger listeners feel the western atmosphere
While Beyoncé helps break the country mold, she invites a younger audience into the western genre.
One of those fans, Tenley Patterson, 26, said she hadn’t bothered to listen to country music before Beyoncé’s releases, but was impressed by the country tracks.
“It’s not like any country music I’ve heard before; it has a certain flavor to it,” Patterson said. “It slowly sparked my interest in the genre.”
According to music data company Luminate, the average country music listener is a baby boomer generation. and Millennials, two generations are more diverse than older age groups.
According to Luminate, country music in general saw an increase of 20 billion streams from 2022 to 2023, a 24% increase from the previous year.
Spotify’s Nashville team, which oversees the music streaming giant’s country genre, said it has seen a surge in Gen Z and Millennial listeners in response to Knowles’ entry. Rachel Whitney, editorial director for the Nashville team, said playlists outside of the country genre played Knowles’ country tracks, expanding their reach.
The Beyoncé draw also increases exposure of other artists on some lists, such as Lainey Wilson and Cody Johnson, who have more “traditional” country songs, Whitney said.
“It’s amazing to see how country resonates with younger listeners,” Whitney said. “We can support that with our playlists and make sure we don’t make country sound a certain way.”
(LR) Beyoncé and Jay-Z attend the 66th 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
Aside from Knowles, pop stars like Lana Del Rey and Post Malone are reportedly preparing to release country albums, according to Billboard. According to the news source, Ed Sheeran may also release a country project in the near future.
UNC’s Neal, himself a Beyoncé fan, described the star’s career path as groundbreaking but said the push for diversity in country music requires more than one superstar.
“Historical evidence suggests that it takes more than one successful artist to drive, frankly, 100 years of genre formation,” Neal said.
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2024-03-16 12:00:01
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