Houston-born Beyoncé splits her time between Los Angeles and New York, so her ties to D.C. might be less noticeable. But on her new album, Cowboy Carter, released at midnight on March 29, she makes sure to highlight both the DMV and the region’s contributions to country music.
Cowboy Carter is the closest Beyoncé has ever come to penning a manifesto. On the genre-breaking album, she honors the pioneering contributions of Black Americans to Southern culture. In doing so, she also takes on the role of a fierce advocate (both for herself and others), which endows her with the lyrical forcefulness necessary to confront her critics head-on.
It is her propensity for confrontation that drives this record. Starting with “Ameriican Requiem,” the opening track, Beyoncé demonstrates that she is unafraid of using her platform to call out the twisted, oppressive forces that have appropriated rock, country, and opera, and made them hostile to Blackness. On this track, she oscillates between psychedelic guitar licks, lush gospel harmonies, and her country twang to call attention to the interconnected histories of these genres, which all have deep roots in Black American culture.
It is within these genre intersections that she finds the power to speak her truth. The lyrics on the “Ameriican Requiem” anthem are more akin to a national address. She boldly asks her detractors, “Used to say I spoke too country/ Then the rejection came/ Said I wasn’t country enough/ Said I wouldn’t saddle up/ But if that ain’t country, tell me what is?”
That unflinching fearlessness inherently stokes drama, but drama is an intentional part of the world she builds on this album.
Cowboy Carter is an experimental sonic journey that feels more akin to a 1940s western radio drama than a studio album. On interludes such as “Smoke Hour,” “Dolly P,” “Smoke Hour II,” and “The Linda Martell Show,” Beyoncé gets country music icons Willie Nelson, Dolly Parton, and Linda Martell to act as hosts for KNTRY Radio Texas, the fictional radio station built into the Cowboy Carter lore. Nelson, Parton, and Martell are ever-present on the album, gently reminding us of the transient nature of genre and encouraging us to embrace Beyoncé’s radical reimagining of country music.
Throughout these reimaginings, Beyoncé pays homage to the area’s country contributions. Baltimore native Brittney Spencer, a Black American country singer, and Shaboozey, a Nigerian American country-rap artist from Fairfax, are featured on multiple songs throughout the record. Virginia Beach native Pharrell produces several of the album’s tracks. Beyoncé also includes a rhythmic line on song “Sweet * Honey * Buckiin’” that is partly influenced by the Baltimore club beats that took the DMV by storm in the ’90s. By including these artists and musical elements on Cowboy Carter, Beyoncé spotlights the long-standing history of country music in the DMV and establishes the musicians’ contributions as essential to her country canon.
Many have wondered why Beyoncé, an artist typically seen as a pop star, would make an album that focuses this intimately on country music. The reason is, above all else, because country is central to her own creation story as an artist and as a public figure. On “Protector,” the fourth track on the album, we hear how country music influenced Beyoncé’s upbringing. The song is stripped-back, featuring nothing but her vocals, a rhythmic guitar line, and a couple of voice recordings of her youngest daughter, Rumi. The vulnerability of the song is striking; this is Beyoncé at her most exposed. Lyrically, it is a truthful examination of motherhood. She has her feet planted firmly on the ground, examining her fears and her wishes for her children. This is the track where it all clicks; this is the reason why Beyoncé had to make a country album—it deconstructs the Beyoncé mythology. It allows us special access into the realm of her personhood.
Cowboy Carter is a deeply theatrical exploration of who Beyoncé is at her core. On this record, she celebrates the countless creative contributions of Black artists to American Southern culture; she pays homage to her maternal grandparents, Agnes Beyincé and Lumis Albert Beyincé and their lineage; and she embraces her vulnerabilities about motherhood, creation, and love. These are the facets of her public life that have been brandished against her, the parts that the rest of the world has labeled weaknesses. But on this record, she finally reclaims each facet, canonizing them as essential to both her and our country’s histories.