“Beyonce’s Highly Anticipated Country Album To Be Released Later This Month”
This month marks the soon to be release of American singer Beyonce’s anticipated eighth studio album Renaissance: Act II. Scheduled to be released on March 29th, the album has been preceded by two singles released during Super Bowl LVIII: “16 Carriages” and “Texas Hold ‘Em”. Later that month, she became the first Black woman to top Billboard’s Hot Country Songs chart. Act II is part of a trilogy project beginning with Act I, released on July 29th, 2022 and largely centered around house and dance music. Act II however is rooted primarily in country music.
Beyonce however is not a complete stranger to country music. The 32- time Grammy winner and Houston native famously featured a country-styled song “Daddy Lessons” on her 2016 magnum opus Lemonade. She famously performed the song at the 50th Annual Country Music Association Awards with country rock female trio The Chicks. Their performance was not without controversy.
Writer Francesa Royster, in her 2022 article for The Oxford American, “How to Be an Outlaw: Beyoncé’s Daddy Lessons”, writes, “Many country music fans and commentators took issue with Beyoncé’s and the Chicks’ performance at the CMAs, some alluding to Beyoncé’s vocal support of Black Lives Matter and the Chicks’ criticism of George W. Bush during his 2003 invasion of Iraq… ‘Daddy Lessons’ thus became a lightning rod for public arguments about the politics of race, genre crossover, gender, and country music, soon to be joined by Lil Nas X’s “Old Town Road” in 2019.”
The controversy did not stop there. The Recording Academy, the governing body that hosts the annual Grammy Awards, allegedly rejected “Daddy Lessons” for submission into the country music category during the 2017 Grammy Awards ceremony.
In 2021, Beyonce was featured in the August issue of Harper’s Bazaar magazine. In it, she debuted her famous “Ivy Park Rodeo” clothing collection, heavily inspired by her growing up in Houston, Texas. In a statement to the magazine, the singer says, “I grew up going to the Houston rodeo every year. It was this amazing diverse and multicultural experience where there was something for every member of the family, including great performances, Houston-style fried Snickers, and fried turkey legs.”
She went on to say the inspiration also came from American Black Cowboy Culture. “One of my inspirations came from the overlooked history of the American Black cowboy. Many of them were originally called cowhands, who experienced great discrimination and were often forced to work with the worst, most temperamental horses. They took their talents and formed the Soul Circuit. Through time, these Black rodeos showcased incredible performers and helped us reclaim our place in western history and culture.”
In her reclamation of the Black presence in country music, Beyonce herself has become something of a lightning rod of public discourse about the relation between race, history, and music. Much is to be seen if the highly anticipated album will live up to the hype upon its release later this month.
