Beyoncé’s country songs are boosting black artists | Wilnesh News

Country Music, Meet Cowboy Carter.

Superstar singer-songwriter Beyoncé Knowles is venturing into country music, challenging a genre that has excluded women of color for decades and proving in the process that listeners have a strong appetite for black female artists interest. Her era of country music, which launched in mid-February with a Super Bowl ad and features an upcoming album, is expanding the industry’s audience and igniting streaming numbers for songs by other Black country female artists.

Data from country star and black artist Tanner Adell shows that her song “Buckle Bunny” surged 305% in the U.S. during the first week of March. Spotify. The music streaming company said another of Adel’s songs, “Trailer Park Barbie,” saw a 130% increase in plays.

Other black female country artists like Mickey Guyton and Reyna Roberts also gained ground, with Country on Knowles’ sixth studio pop album Lemonade The style song “Daddy Lessons” saw a 540% streaming spike the day after her two country music performances and the single was released last month, according to Spotify.

One of the singles, “Texas Hold ‘Em,” made her the first black woman to reach No. 1 on Billboard’s Hot Country chart, according to a well-known music magazine.

The song and her recent second country song “16 Carriages” will appear on “Act Two: Cowboy Carter.” Knowles announced the album title on Tuesday postal on her website.It is the second film after “Act One: Renaissance” three part project.

New York Times best-selling author, country songwriter and lecturer Alice Randall said Knowles’ album release, the first artist to have a No. 1 hit on the Hot Country charts, was a “pinnacle moment.” Black women writing songs, back in 1994.

“Beyoncé shows that black women have been involved in country music almost from the beginning,” Randall said. “We finally crossed the red line that kept us out of the rankings.”

when some music critic Praising Knowles’ country tracks, others fans of the genre Didn’t get a warm welcome.

Two days after the release of “Texas Hold ‘Em” – dubbed “pop countryA song with elements of folk musician Rhiannon Giddens playing on the banjo – it was played 49 times on pop radio, according to one pop radio station. X posts Provided by US Radio Updater, a radio industry tracker. But country radio only played it twice, according to the post.

Beyoncé fans – collectively known as the “BeyHive” – ​​called an Oklahoma country station to protest the broadcaster’s initials. reject Request to play “Texas Hold’em”. On another occasion, a fan reported hearing a radio host comment that while the song was country and the instrumentation was country, “something else about it made me think it wasn’t country.”

According to one agency, of the more than 2,100 artists who performed on country radio between 2002 and 2020, only about 1.5% were black, while about 98% were white. Report Information about country music performance from SongData. Other artists of color, including those who are Hispanic, Native, mestizo or Filipino, make up about 1% of participating artists.

Outside of radio, Black artists and artists of color account for less than 4% of country songs played on radio, chart-topping songs, artists signed to major labels and award nominations, according to SongData.

Artists of color have indeed made strides over the past 20 years—the share of songs played has increased by 3.2 percentage points, according to SongData—and those gains have overwhelmingly benefited artists of color. The report found that women accounted for less than 3% of songs played by artists of color.

Some observers believe that resistance to Knowles’ recent music stems from racism and political bias.

Jocelyn Neal, chair and professor of music at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, said: “Artists of color are releasing great music and sparking a great conversation, but it’s not changing the potential of mainstream country radio. limitations and forms of racism.” .

Country artists like Maren Morris, Luke Combs, and Kacey Musgraves have taken a more traditional approach to themes like beer, pickup trucks, and country life. Progressive approach. Black LGBTQ hip-hop artist Lil Nas X dabbled in the genre with a “country-influenced” song, “Old Town Road.”this song embroiled in a racial debate The song was removed from the Billboard Hot Country chart in 2019 after allegedly lacking a country element compared to other songs on the list.

Neil said political tensions in the country music industry have been boiling over for decades as new, more liberal artists try to break away from the genre’s “conservative” roots. The genre’s fan base has long skewed conservative, she said.

According to NBC News, both Knowles and superstar Taylor Swift are having big years in 2023, receiving % negative reviews among registered Republican voters regardless of political affiliation, race and age. above any other electorate. polling. Among voters surveyed, 34% viewed Knowles unfavorably and 16% viewed him favorably. More than 40% of Republicans are neutral. Only 5% of registered Democrats surveyed have a negative view of Knowles, while more than half have a positive view.

Houston native Beyoncé became a hit with country music fans after performing “Lessons From My Dad” live at the CMA Awards in 2016. She was joined by The Chicks, a women’s power group that made headlines in the early 2000s for speaking out against then-Republican President George Bush and the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

While country music listeners generally belong to the baby boomer generation, those born between 1946 and 1964, Gen Z listeners (those born between 1997 and 2012) are new interests.and Millennials, with two generations reportedly more diverse than older age groups.

According to Luminate, country music streams overall will increase by 20 billion times from 2022 to 2023, an annual increase of 24%.

Spotify’s Nashville team, which monitors the country music genre for the music streaming giant, said it saw an increase in Gen Z and Millennial listeners with the addition of Knowles. Rachel Whitney, editorial director of the Nashville team, said playlists outside of the country genre are playing Knowles’ country tracks, broadening her reach.

Whitney said Beyoncé’s draw also increased exposure for some of the other artists on the list, such as Lenny Wilson and Cody Johnson, who have more “traditional” country songs.

“It’s great to see how country music is connecting with young listeners,” Whitney said. “We can support that with our playlists and make sure we don’t make country music a specific sound.”

Besides Knowles, star Musicians including Lana Del Rey and Post Malone are gearing up to release country albums, according to Billboard.sources said Ed Sheeran A national project may also be announced in the near future.

UNC’s Neal, a Beyoncé fan himself, describes the star’s career path as groundbreaking but says it will take more than one superstar to push for diversity in country music.

“Historical evidence shows that it takes more than one successful artist to really push a 100-year-old genre forward,” Neal said.