Beyoncé’s album “Cowboy Carter,” released March 29, 2024, has won numerous awards, including the Grammys’ Album of the Year and Best Contemporary Country Album, along with the NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Album.

“Is Beyoncé’s ‘Cowboy Carter’ really a country album?” That’s the question I usually hear when I bring up her newest release, which dropped on March 29, 2024. This is her eighth solo studio album and Act II of her three-act project, where Act I, “Renaissance,” shed light on Black Queer culture, and Act III is rumored to drop soon. 

“Cowboy Carter” has 27 songs, spanning one hour and 18 minutes. The album includes collaborations with country music royalty such as Willie Nelson, Dolly Parton, and Linda Martell. On Instagram, Beyoncé shared, “[This album] was born out of an experience that I had years ago where I did not feel welcomed, and it was very clear that I wasn’t, but because of that experience, I did a deeper dive into the history of country music and studied our rich musical archive.”

The unwelcome experience refers to her 2016 track “Daddy Lessons,” where Beyoncé performed the song with The Chicks at the Country Music Awards, which later received racist backlash (CNN). In contrast, the CMAs featured a pop-crossover performance just one year before, with Justin Timberlake and Chris Stapleton, which received high praise and was described as “truly magical” by some critics. 

As someone who doesn’t usually listen to country music, I was intrigued by this new album. Beyoncé definitely dug into the history of country music, especially through her collaboration with Linda Martell, a country music icon as the first Black woman to perform solo at the Grand Ole Opry (Ryman). Rolling Stone magazine even refers to Martell as “Country’s Lost Pioneer.”

To me, Beyoncé’s album represents country music and explores many perspectives of being American. The endless controversy around whether the album is country shows where society stands today with double standards in music when it comes to gender, race, and genre. In truth, music is individual. Sam Sanders, the host of NPR’s “It’s Been A Minute,” shares, “Who decides what is or isn’t country music is very subjective.” 

I feel that artists shouldn’t have to feel confined to specific genres and boundaries. After the release of “Cowboy Carter,” many people have argued that the album isn’t true country music because it was coming from an artist who has historically catered to a pop audience. There have been precedents, such as Taylor Swift changing from country to pop. And what about “Old Town Road” by Lil Nas X, which was later remixed featuring Billy Ray Cyrus?

 In 2019, “Old Town Road” climbed the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart, reaching No. 19, but was removed by Billboard, stating, “While ‘Old Town Road‘ incorporates references to country and cowboy imagery, it does not embrace enough elements of today’s country music to chart in its current version” (AP News). This decision by Billboard sparked criticism from artists like Moses Sumney and Billy Ray Cyrus, who “say it’s proof that the music industry doesn’t afford Black artists the same creative license as white artists” (NPR). 

Six years later, with the release of “Cowboy Carter,” the same sentiment behind creative license and acceptance around Black and white musical artists still holds strong. Did you know Post Malone released a country album called “F-1 Trillion” in 2024? Malone is a white artist who shares some of the same genres as Beyoncé—hip-hop, pop and R&B—but has not received as much criticism for his venturing into country music as compared to Beyoncé’s backlash.

In a CBS article, Amanda Marie Martinez, a postdoctoral fellow in the department of American studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, who researches anti-Blackness in the country music industry, points out the discrepancies between Post Malone’s and Beyoncé’s country albums. “F-1 Trillion” was nominated for four CMA Awards, while “Cowboy Carter” received none, even though she was the first Black woman to hit No. 1 on the Hot Country Songs chart with “Texas Hold ‘Em.”   

In addition, a Tennessee report shares how “Country radio airplay is dominated by white men, with women comprising 11 percent of airplay in 2022. Black female artists had nearly zero airplay on country radio from 2002 to 2020.” This shows that while white men dominate country music today, that’s not how the genre began. Time Magazine says, “The truth is that country music has never been white. Country music is Mexican. Country music is Indigenous. Country music is Black.” 

In this current political climate, Beyoncé makes me feel proud to be American, especially as a Korean American adoptee. She’s shed light on Black Queer culture with Act I, “Renaissance,” and Black country music history with Act II, “Cowboy Carter.”

In “American Requiem,” the first song on the album, she sings: “They used to say I spoke too country. And the rejection came, said I wasn’t country ’nough. Said I wouldn’t saddle up, but if that ain’t country, tell me, what is?”