Feb. 2 marked one of the most anticipated ceremonies in music history, the Grammys. With 99 nominations and 35 wins over her career span, Beyoncé finally received the Album of the Year Award for “Cowboy Carter.” It was the last award of the night, with many saying it was an overdue acknowledgment after having released eight studio albums.
“Cowboy Carter” is an album with a bold statement on Black country artists’ erasure in the music industry with Americana inspired tunes. Beyoncé also took home Best Country Album and made history by being the first Black female artist to win in the category.
As always, praise comes with critique. Many people believed this album should not be considered country and said their reasoning was because every song in the album is not exactly country, but country inspired. Some even said that since Beyoncé is not a country artist, “Cowboy Carter” couldn’t possibly be a country album.
This isn’t the first time Beyoncé has been criticized for entering the country music space. In 2016, Beyoncé performed her song “Daddy Lessons” from her album “Lemonade” with popular Dallas native country trio The Chicks (at the time known as the Dixie Chicks) for the Country Music Association Awards. She was confronted with strong negative reactions, like those she received for “Cowboy Carter,” from both country music listeners and fellow artists.
While everyone is entitled to their own opinions, racist undertones or not, there is more to this than meets the eye. To understand this, we must first look at the history of Black country music. For a long time, country music has been associated with white traditional conservatism. While that may be true in some cases, not many know the history of country music in general. Black people have been pioneers in the country scene for over a hundred years.
Early hillbilly music (which would later be known as country) drew inspiration from songs and tunes with cultural meaning that slaves had created, since they weren’t welcomed in white spaces. After that, country music tried to market and trademark itself as something entirely different from its origins, causing its true historical meaning to be unknown for some.
Years later, artists like Beyoncé would be criticized for exploring a genre that others believed didn’t deem them “fit” for. This is exactly why the “Cowboy Carter” underlying message is important. It was Beyoncé’s way of not limiting herself and artists in general, to sounds and genres that others think they should belong in.
For a long time, the music industry tried to strip Black history from the country genre, creating a power struggle between what listeners believe and an artist’s true meaning behind their music.
The question remains: is “Cowboy Carter” winning Best Country Album controversial or not? We believe it’s a nuanced answer. Music, like all art forms, is subjective. It’s vast and diverse with influences of culture, history and politics. We tend to pick apart and dissect what we consume and sometimes we forget that art is always evolving.
Restricting ourselves to traditional beliefs on what country music should be will not only give us a tunnel vision view on the country genre, but music in general. Country music was born in storytelling, but over the years some doors have been shut, silencing artists and grouping them to genres that become confined.
And as Linda Martell, a true trailblazer in country, says in “SPAGHETTII,” “Genres are a funny little concept, aren’t they?”
