celeb news "Beyoncé's country album drowns out the Black music history it claims to celebrate"

[midnightdawn]

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I'm an internationally touring acoustic guitarist from Virginia who has studied American vernacular music. The promise of Beyoncé's country album was exciting to me, as were the personnel on its two lead singles: the musician-scholar Rhiannon Giddens playing banjo and viola on Texas Hold 'Em and pedal steel player Robert Randolph – of the Sacred Steel tradition, the southern Black Pentecostal church music dating back to the 1930s – appears on 16 Carriages. These are Black country and folk artists who work within Black traditional lineages that deserve to be highlighted and celebrated for their specificity. However, on hearing Cowboy Carter this weekend, I felt as though little work had been done to utilise the breadth of knowledge of Beyoncé's collaborators or the Black country/traditional music community at large. Beyoncé settled for using Giddens' banjo and Randolph's pedal steel as props to back up the overall production on the record, instead of boosting these traditions to the forefront on an album with an artificial sheen. Moreover, it felt in greater conversation with an exclusionary mainstream – and like a capitalist gesture to insert itself into that world.''

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Despite Cowboy Carter's use of funk, psychedelia and even Jersey club, Beyoncé's flagrant leaning on country aesthetics to establish this album as being markedly different from her previous records suggests an artist conforming to the standards of the latter category in order to cash in on the growing popularity of country music.

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What other reason is there to include guest spots from Post Malone and Miley Cyrus – both white artists who piggybacked on hip-hop aesthetics to gain success and relevance before later criticising the genre? It seems incongruous given Beyoncé's laudable work to give Black artistry its due, as does the news that Post Malone is set to collaborate with country star Morgan Wallen, who was caught on video in 2021 using a racial slur and briefly penalised by the industry – only to return to the top of the charts and break records when his 2023 album One Thing at a Time became the longest-running US No 1 country album. The swift recovery of his career demonstrates the double standards for white male artists, and then everyone else, within the country music industry. And Beyoncé singing a dreadful duet with Post Malone about Levi's jeans is not tradition; it's an advertisement that exploits a certain aesthetic, much like her Black Panther-esque uniform at the 2016 Super Bowl.

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Her attempts at country-style storytelling also miss the mark. 16 Carriages immediately reminded me of Merle Travis's hit Sixteen Tons. They're both autobiographical testimonies to hardship and sacrifice. Singing about his family's life in the Kentucky coal mines, Merle sings, "I loaded 16 tons / What do you get? / Another day older and deeper in debt.” On 16 Carriages, Beyoncé sings about her young touring life with Destiny's Child "on the back of the bus" in "a bunk with the band". As hard as I know bus life can be, Beyoncé's hardships are a Hollywood version of the working person's reality.

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Perhaps if Cowboy Carter had featured more working-class Black country artists, or leaned on the scholarship of the likes of Dom Flemons, formerly of the Carolina Chocolate Drops, or collectives such as Black Opry, which represents Black artists, fans and industry workers, or the now-defunct Black Country Music Association of the 1990s, it might have been as thrilling as Modern Sounds.

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As has been the case since her 2013 self-titled album, Beyoncé has remained secretive about how the album was made – making it hard to see anything, or any culture, other than Beyoncé herself as the central figure of Cowboy Carter. It's unfortunate: the album would have benefited from de-centring its superstar and letting the experts she trusted to join her in creating the album to shine brighter. As it stands, it feels as though Beyoncé has put the Carter before the horse.

x

[Glamthony]

She's smashing, so she's making black people smash and putting her heel on everyone's neck.

[Sheep]

womp womp she's still winning regardless 

Edited April 4 by Sheep

[Virgos Groove]

This is actually a really good article that makes interesting points on authenticity and how Bey's position in the industry influences the perception of her art. It doesn't stop me from loving the album, but I see where the author is coming from.

 

Sadly, ATRL is going to turn this into fuel for stan wars, with OBHs going "See!!! It's a bad album!!" and the Hive dismissing the author's credibility.

[KatyPrismSpirit]

Beyoncé on Cowboy Carter

 

- included black female country singers on a Beatles cover

- collabs with two different black male country artists

- literally has a skit paying homage to the first commercially successful black female country artist

 

and the points in those quotes make no sense. 16 carriages is literally about her PAST life before fame, so how is it a "Hollywood version"? makes zero sense

[Wicked]

Great article. 

[barbiegrande]

6 minutes ago, KatyPrismSpirit said:

Beyoncé on Cowboy Carter

 

- included black female country singers on a Beatles cover

- collabs with two different black male country artists

- literally has a skit paying homage to the first commercially successful black female country artist

 

and the points in those quotes make no sense. 16 carriages is literally about her PAST life before fame, so how is it a "Hollywood version"? makes zero sense

They weren't riding horse and carriages in Houston in the 90s. 

[KatyPrismSpirit]

3 minutes ago, Wicked said:

Great article. 

a lot is rooted in the author misunderstanding the entire point of this album tbh. 

 

 

 

[Sheep]

19 minutes ago, Virgos Groove said:

This is actually a really good article that makes interesting points on authenticity and how Bey's position in the industry influences the perception of her art. It doesn't stop me from loving the album, but I see where the author is coming from.

 

Sadly, ATRL is going to turn this into fuel for stan wars, with OBHs going "See!!! It's a bad album!!" and the Hive dismissing the author's credibility.

Sorry but this is a straight up "I want to be smarter than Beyonce" hit piece. The author acknowledges then completely sidesteps Bey's intentions at several points, which in an article this short is actually unforgiveable, its not like this is a 40 page published essay where there was room to get lost in the sauce like this.

 

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Ahead of release, Beyoncé stated that Cowboy Carter was "a 'Beyoncé' album, not a country album", and she sings that she wants genre to become meaningless.

... then puts out this quote

"Tradition is shaped according to the inner logic of specific communities through long processes of creative engagement … Genre, on the other hand, is a product of capitalism, and people with access to power create it, control it and maintain it in order to commoditise art.”

 

Then continues with the narrative of of it being a genre record when the point is to shame these systems and sidestep them

 

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What other reason is there to include guest spots from Post Malone and Miley Cyrus – both white artists who piggybacked on hip-hop aesthetics to gain success and relevance before later criticising the genre?

...

Beyoncé singing a dreadful duet with Post Malone about Levi's jeans is not tradition; it's an advertisement that exploits a certain aesthetic

If they got any closer to the point here it would impale them.

 

 

Like much of Bey's work both in her art and in real life for the past decade, CC is an exercise in criticizing and using her enormous influence/respect to dismantle power structures that have kept her and people like her in a box where they have to follow expectations(whether it's as a woman, a mother, a black person, somebody who makes black music, somebody who makes top 40 music, etc).

 

Given how little press she's done and how consistent the messaging about her intentions have been here both in the press and in the very literal lyricism in the album, I don't know what more she could have done to avoid stupid responses like this.

Edited April 4 by Sheep

[CoolNebraskaGuy]

21 minutes ago, midnightdawn said:

As it stands, it feels as though Beyoncé has put the Carter before the horse.

I mean, shes said herself- its a Beyonce album, not a country album. They're doing a bit much with this list of perceived grievances  

 

Beyonce smashing with a country album is a net win for society, shouldn't we all be able to appreciate that?

Edited April 4 by CoolNebraskaGuy

[QueenBLadyG]

An idiot with a position 

[Shelter]

Someone is bitter she wasn't asked to work with her. Just look at her twitter  

 

She can't work with white people now? The way people want to control her or what she does. 

[Shelter]

Also where is country music growing?  

[swissman]

A few things...

 

First, there a this fallacy that Beyoncé herself was wearing Black Panther clothing at the Super Bowl. That was her dancers. Beyoncé was wearing a Michael Jackson inspired outfit. I know it had an allusions to the Black Panthers in that she was wearing bullets and they were famous for carrying rifles to warn white people they too could own guns, but I just find the way people trying to discredit her use of Black Panther imagery by repeating a non-truth to be rather annoying. Just...get the words right.

 

Second, can someone point to where Beyoncé ever claimed she was going to celebrate Black music with this album? Her words on the matter far as I know are: "It feels good to see how music can unite so many people around the world, while also amplifying the voices of some of the people who have dedicated so much of their lives educating on our musical history." In what she put out, she united musicians of various types while also educated people on musical history. Where is this claim that her motivation was solely to celebrate Black artists and work exclusively with them?

 

Third, the fact that the author lamented how Beyoncé didn't work with certain Black artists while mentioning off-hand JUST ONE of the NINE instances a Black country artist was featured says a lot. It's a selective outrage, much like The Gift, where much discourse was spent adding up what areas of Africa her featured artists were from in an effort to (or in a way that ended up) undermining the amazing work she and her featured artists did on the album. With Black is King, she was apparently being "Mama Africa", trying too hard to align herself to Africa/Blackness, etc. But now even though the great majority of featured artists are Black, it's an issue that more weren't included. Meanwhile The Gift featured a slew of names unfamiliar to most of the world and was criticized for what was already mentioned above.

 

 

 

Edited April 4 by swissman

[By the Water]

In Beyoncé's defense, it was her fans that pushed hard for the whole reclaiming the genre narrative, not her

[swissman]

15 minutes ago, KatyPrismSpirit said:

Beyoncé on Cowboy Carter

 

- included black female country singers on a Beatles cover

- collabs with two different black male country artists

- literally has a skit paying homage to the first commercially successful black female country artist

 

and the points in those quotes make no sense. 16 carriages is literally about her PAST life before fame, so how is it a "Hollywood version"? makes zero sense

this too!

 

like...quoting one of the lyrics of 16 CARRIAGES that don't really sound like struggle whatsoever in an effort to say she didn't face hardship? It's giving "I have a point I want to make so I'll just ignore everything that negates it".

[Sheep]

4 minutes ago, By the Water said:

In Beyoncé's defense, it was her fans that pushed hard for the whole reclaiming the genre narrative, not her

Both acts have been about subverting, not reclaiming. The whole point is to CRITICIZE the presumed ownership, not take it over.

[Marla Singer]

Saw this article the other day and had to laugh. She's concerned about Beyoncé overshadowing other black musicians and others not getting enough limelight, so she decided to... write more about Beyoncé.

 

 

[Eóghan]

21 minutes ago, KatyPrismSpirit said:

Beyoncé on Cowboy Carter

 

- included black female country singers on a Beatles cover

- collabs with two different black male country artists

- literally has a skit paying homage to the first commercially successful black female country artist

 

and the points in those quotes make no sense. 16 carriages is literally about her PAST life before fame, so how is it a "Hollywood version"? makes zero sense

The article made some point but you made some point too.

 

Also having both Miley Cyrus and Post Malone who both delved into hip/hop music and were accused of culture appropriation in the past is clearly a calculated move from Beyoncé who's trying to show that music is for everyone and shouldn't be segregated like the country sphere has been doing for decades. I don't think Beyoncé believes in cultural appropriation in music, i actually believe she very much thinks it's a stupid way of seeing the world and she's doubling down to show a better example to future generations by having these two in particular in her album (i meam she could've had anyone but she choose them). Ok she's reclaiming black gendras, not perpetuating what others have done to black people, that's not the lesson here. There's a reason why Dolly Parton and Willie are also very prominent on this album. This is celebration of openness and unity in music.

[PrettyHurts]

The article literally doesn't mention the black artists featured on the album 

 

How is she drowning out Black musicians when they are featured as instrumentalists, songwriters, and producers on the album? I just don't get it 

[suburbannature]

And where does she think the modern country sound came from? Black southern, bluesy rock that sounds exactly like much of CC.

[americanshameless]

The Post song shouldn't have been there, he himself is better suited for a Taylor album  

[Kristie Kuwa]

4 minutes ago, By the Water said:

In Beyoncé's defense, it was her fans that pushed hard for the whole reclaiming the genre narrative, not her

Is she not? How many black artists are smashing in dance genre, how many white? How many black artists smash in Country, how many are white?

And who influenced and shaped the music of these genres? Black people.

 

So spare me with that bs just because an authors agenda clearly was not to objectively take a look at Cowboy Carter, but to eagerly search for criticisms. There are PLENTY of things to rave about, to applaud her for, but of course it had to be the "woke" black author to over-criticize Bey because shes "a legit" one.

 

Spare me with this bs. The agends is clear and that woman probably listens to Taylor in the meantime. Looks like it at least 

 

[swissman]

12 minutes ago, Shelter said:

Someone is bitter she wasn't asked to work with her. Just look at her twitter  

 

She can't work with white people now? The way people want to control her or what she does. 

Not to mention that (using only the musical features not the interludes) there are 2 white artists vs. 7 Black ones.

 

 

Edited April 4 by swissman

[Josh]

23 minutes ago, KatyPrismSpirit said:

Beyoncé on Cowboy Carter

 

- included black female country singers on a Beatles cover

- collabs with two different black male country artists

- literally has a skit paying homage to the first commercially successful black female country artist

 

and the points in those quotes make no sense. 16 carriages is literally about her PAST life before fame, so how is it a "Hollywood version"? makes zero sense

They were on a song longer than a minute but Miley gets a full verse?