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BEYONCÉ’S FORAY INTO COUNTRY MUSIC  
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William Nash
February 22, 2024
The Conversation
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_ As more listeners hear her directive to “just take it to the
dance floor,” perhaps the sonic harmony of the country genre will
translate to a new way of thinking about whether race ought to
segregate art. What a revolution that would be. _

Beyonce's Texas Hold 'Em official visualizer, screen grab

 

On Super Bowl Sunday, Beyoncé released two country songs – “16
Carriages [[link removed]]” and
“Texas Hold ‘Em [[link removed]]”
– that elicited a mix of admiration and indignation.

This is not her first foray
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into the genre, but it is her most successful and controversial entry.
As of last week, Beyoncé became the first Black woman to have a No. 1
song on the country charts
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At the same time, country music stations like KYKC in Oklahoma
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initially refused to play the record because it was “not country.”

Many non-listeners stereotype country music
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as being white, politically conservative, militantly patriotic and
rural. And you can certainly find artists
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songs
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that fit that bill.

But the story of country has always been more complicated, and debates
about race and authenticity in country are nothing new; they’ve
plagued country artists, record companies and listeners for over a
century.

In the official visualizer for ‘16 Carriages,’ Beyoncé dons a
bejeweled cowboy hat.

As someone who researches and teaches Black culture and country music
[[link removed]], I hope that
Beyoncé’s huge profile will change the terms of this debate.

To me, Beyoncé’s Blackness is not the major bone of contention
here.

Instead, the controversy is about her “countryness,” and whether a
pop star can authentically cross from one genre to the next. Lucky for
Beyoncé, it’s been done plenty of times before. And her songs are
arriving at a time when more and more Black musicians are charting
country hits.

Cross-racial collaboration

Americans have long viewed country music – or, as it was known
before World War II, hillbilly music
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white musicians. This is partly by design. The “hillbilly”
category was initially created as a counterpart
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to the “race records
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aimed at Black audiences from the 1920s to the 1940s.

But from the start, the genre has been influenced by Black musical
styles and performances.

White country music superstars like The Carter Family
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and Hank Williams [[link removed]]
learned tunes and techniques from Black musicians Lesley Riddle
[[link removed]] and Rufus
“Tee-Tot” Payne
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respectively. Unfortunately, few recordings of Black country artists
from the early 20th century exist, and most of those who did record
had their racial identity masked.

Johnny Cash’s
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mentor, Gus Cannon
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proves a rare exception. Cannon recorded in the 1920s with his jug
band, Cannon’s Jug Stompers
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and he had a second wave of success during the folk revival of the
1960s [[link removed]].

[A black and white photograph of an older, balding Black man wearing
glasses and sitting in a chair while strumming a banjo.]
Gus Cannon was an early mentor to Johnny Cash. Michael Ochs
Archives/Getty Images
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Similarly, the genre has always included a mix of Anglo-American and
Black American musical instruments. The banjo, for instance, has
African roots
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and was brought to America by enslaved people.

In the case of “Texas Hold ‘Em,” which begins with a lively
banjo riff, Beyoncé has partnered with Grammy- and Pulitzer
Prize-winning MacArthur Fellow Rhiannon Giddens
[[link removed]], America’s foremost contemporary Black
banjoist and banjo scholar. (I would argue that this choice alone
undercuts objections about the track’s country bona fides.)

Different tacks to navigate race

By releasing these tracks, Beyoncé joins performers like Charley
Pride
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and Mickey Guyton
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– country stars whose success has forced them to confront questions
about the links between their racial and musical identities.

Pride, whose hits include “Kiss an Angel Good Mornin’,” “Just
Between You and Me” and “Is Anybody Going to San Antone?,”
became, in 1971, the first Black American to win the Country Music
Association’s Entertainer of the Year award. In 2000, he was the
first Black American inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame
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But throughout his career, Pride resisted attempts to emphasize his
Blackness. From his 1971 hit “I’m Just Me” to his 2014 refusal
to discuss his racial “firsts” with a Canadian talk show host
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Pride consistently strove to be seen as a country artist who happened
to be Black, rather than as a country musician whose Blackness was
central to his public persona and work.

At the other end of the spectrum is Guyton, who gained recognition and
acclaim for songs like her 2020 hit “Black Like Me
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– a frank, heartfelt commentary on the challenges she’s faced as a
Black woman pursuing a career in Nashville, Tennessee.

Both Pride and Guyton reflect the zeitgeists of their respective
decades. In the wake of the civil rights struggles of the 1960s,
Pride’s “colorblind” approach enabled him to circumvent existing
racial tensions
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chose his material with an eye toward averting controversy – for
example, he eschewed love ballads
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lest they be understood as promoting interracial relationships. At the
start of his career, when his music was released without artist
photos, Pride made jokes about his “permanent tan
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to put surprised white concertgoers at ease.

Guyton’s work, on the other hand, resonated with the national
outrage over the murder of George Floyd and tapped into the
celebration of Black empowerment that was part of the ethos of Black
Lives Matter.

And yet I cannot think of another Black musical artist with
Beyoncé’s cultural cache who has taken up country music.

Some might argue that Ray Charles
[[link removed]], whose
groundbreaking 1962 album, “Modern Sounds in Country and Western
Music
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brought legions of new listeners to country artists, is a forerunner
of Beyoncé’s in this regard.

Without diminishing Charles’ significance, I expect that
Beyoncé’s forthcoming Renaissance II
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will outshine [[link removed]]
Charles’ landmark recording.

Black country in the 21st century

Over the past five years, in addition to the buzz over Lil Nas X’s
"Old Town Road
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a significant number of Black musicians – including Darius Rucker
[[link removed]], Kane Brown
[[link removed]] and Jimmie Allen
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to name a few – have charted country hits.

The Black Opry Revue [[link removed]], founded in 2021 by
music journalist Holly G, produces tours that bring together rising
Black country musicians, giving each more exposure than performing
individually could.

Luke Combs’ cover of Tracy Chapman’s “Fast Car” topped the
country charts and made Chapman the first Black woman to win the
Country Music Association’s Song of the Year award. Their
performance of the song [[link removed]]
at the 2024 Grammys went viral, demonstrating both the fluidity of
genres and the power of collaboration
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Beyoncé’s loyal fan base, known colloquially as “the Beyhive,”
is already propelling “Texas Hold ‘Em” to the top of the pop and
country charts. While there may continue to be pushback from
traditionalist country music gatekeepers, country radio executives
holding sway over national broadcast networks are calling Beyoncé’s
new songs “a gift to country music
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As more and more listeners hear her directive to “just take it to
the dance floor,” perhaps the sonic harmony of the country genre
will translate to a new way of thinking about whether socially
constructed categories, like race, ought to segregate art.

And what a revolution that would be.[The Conversation]

William Nash
[[link removed]], Professor
of American Studies and English and American Literatures, _Middlebury
[[link removed]]_

This article is republished from The Conversation
[[link removed]] under a Creative Commons license. Read
the original article
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* Beyonce
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* country music
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