Beyonce is coming for the country crown

Beyonce

Album: Cowboy Carter

Release Date: 2024

“Beyoncé’s most recent album, “Cowboy Carter,” is destined to be a landmark album in her collection, and has the potential to be a transcendental force in how American’s perceive country music. While the album has only been available on streaming services for two weeks, and the vinyl edition has been available for less than twenty-four hours (at the time of this writing), it is already establishing milestones and challenging conceptions of how the genre is defined.

With this release, Beyoncé became the first black woman to have the Number One country album and has already charted an astonishing sixteen singles, including eight of the current top ten. She is forcing America to consider the question of what country music is and who gets to define it. For her part, she is choosing to shun labels, instead slyly saying, “This isn’t a country album. It’s a Beyoncé album.”

The concept for the album originated after the Country Music Awards show in 2016. The Dixie Chicks were making their grand return to the CMAs after being run out of town by a pitchfork-wielding mob during the Bush years for knowing the difference between Iraq and Iran. That chapter represents a dark time in country music, a time when fans were asked to make a choice between celebrating common sense or sticking a boot up your ass. They made their choice, and leaned further into a hardline conservative ideology.

The Chicks weren’t planning on returning to the CMA’s, or the Nashville music scene, but when Beyoncé came calling, Natalie Maines was not going to say no. So, the Chicks make their grand return for an ultra-hyped performance featuring a “special guest”. A last minute announcement from ABC confirmed many fans suspicions of the guests identity. Beyoncé and the Chicks took the stage and delivered an electrifying, mic-drop performance. It was the most watched fifteen minutes in CMA history, but a segment of the fanbase was threatened by the appearance of a force that did not fit within the carefully cultivated boundaries of mainstream country music.

The online response was swift, and vicious. Racist and expletive filled rants flooded comments sections and social media platforms by fans who felt the performance did not belong on a country music show. Six days later, Donald Trump shockingly defeated Hillary Clinton in the presidential election and a dark underbelly of Americans felt empowered to proudly display their intolerance and hate. The fury continued to spread among a large segment of the country music fanbase, even leading the CMA’s to scrub their media platforms of mentions of the performance in an attempt to distance themselves from the backlash.

Those who thought they could silence Beyoncé with online vitriol have found they invited a giant into their midst, and she has returned to conquer the territory they attempted to ban her from. In announcing the album, she stated, “It 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.” 

“Cowboy Carter” is the culmination of Beyoncé’s deeper dive. This is her exploration of the borders of a murkily defined genre. More than that, this is her challenging the foundations of an ideology, and her declaration that the American flag doesn’t mean one thing, or belong to one homogenous faction of Americans. The album is a statement, and when an artist of Beyoncé’s stature spends years crafting a thoughtful statement you can trust they have something to say.

Flowing through the album are a myriad of stories celebrating black contributions to country music and the cowboy lifestyle. There is the inclusion of Linda Martell, putting a spotlight on the first black woman to perform at the Grand Ole Opry and revisiting a moment that has been nearly erased in the revision of what constitutes country music. You can see it when she chooses to cover “Blackbird,” a song penned by Paul McCartney in dedication to the Little Rock Nine and other people who have faced discrimination. Country music legends Dolly Parton and Willie Nelson make appearances throughout the album, seemingly anointing her as one of their own.

Each track contains additional examples, and you can spend countless hours scouring the internet to discover them all, but I think the best option is to do exactly what Beyoncé wants: “I hope this music is an experience, creating another journey where you can close your eyes, start from the beginning, and never stop.”

Mix a cocktail, dim your lights, and let Beyoncé deliver her musical education.

The Cocktail: Vieux Carré

A Vieux Carré is a classic drink that originated in the 1930’s in New Orleans. The name means “Old Square” in French, a nod to its French Quarter heritage, and the ingredients are indicative of the city’s multicultural roots: Cognac and Liqueur from France, Vermouth from Italy, all framed around a backbone of American Rye. Its flavor is similar to the Sazerac or Manhattan, but the split base of Brandy & Rye, and splash of liqueur work together to add floral and spicy elements to the profile. These elements are enhanced by the addition of both New Orleans-born Peychaud’s bitters and traditional Angostura.

Beyoncé is a Houstonian, but her mom was raised a few hours to the East. She alludes to this lineage on her rendition of Jolene, singing, “I know I’m a queen, Jolene – I’m still a Creole banjee bitch from Louisian’.” We never need much of an excuse to mix a Vieux Carré, but that’s enough for us. If you need more convincing, we can point to the collaboration with New Orleans native Jon Batiste on the opening track or the inclusion of Shreveport-born Willie Jones on “Just for Fun.” If that’s not enough, the internet tells me there are a few more nods to the state sprinkled in the album. I’ll let you work that out.

With a nod to Beyoncé’s Cajun heritage, we raise a glass and let the record play.

Ingredients

• 3/4 oz Bourbon or Rye
• 3/4 oz Cognac (or Brandy)
• 3/4 oz Sweet Vermouth
• 1/4 oz Benedictine
• 2 dashes Peychaud’s Bitters
• 2 dashes Angostura Bitters

Directions

1. Add ingredients to a mixing glass with ice and stir until chilled.
2. Strain into a cocktail glass.
3. Garnish with lemon twist, cherry, or both.