Put your cowboy boots on and grab your holster because Beyoncé just revealed the name of her upcoming Renaissance: Act II album. Cowboy Carter releases on March 29, almost confirming with its title that the Houston artist has caught country in her lasso.
On March 12, Beyoncé posted a saddle adorned with a Cowboy Carter banner along with a link to her website’s pre-order album sale in an Instagram story. This album will feature two singles, Texas Hold ‘Em and 16 Carriages, which she surprise released last month after her Verizon Super Bowl commercial.
The pre-order sale includes two cd box sets with a t-shirt, several vinyl albums, and individual cd’s. So far, none of the items reveal the tracklist or the official album cover.
Beyoncé’s foray into country provided listeners with a refreshing take on the genre, but it also angered many country fans who refused to accept her shake up of the category. One country radio station in Oklahoma even refused to play Texas Hold ‘Em without listening to confirm Beyoncé’s new musical direction. But, Beyoncé’s new music is far bigger than country gatekeepers.
Like her previous album, Renaissance: Act I, which liberated people through its exploration of electronic sounds and celebration of queer community, Cowboy Carter will liberate people by opening the floodgates for Black artists to reclaim the country genre.
Many of country’s biggest names are not Black, even though the genre’s origins are rooted in Black traditions like church hymns, instrumentation like the banjo derived from the West African lute, and much more. This is because of the early 20th century “race records” categories that record labels used to separate Black people from country music, laying the foundation for further discrimination today with the pigeonholing of all Black artists into r&b and hip-hop regardless of their sound.
Beyoncé is challenging that narrative with Cowboy Carter’s singles. Read more about the history of Black country music here.