Beyoncé, a household name, an icon among the music industry and the world, recently won her 35th Grammy award and is now the most-awarded artist in Grammy history. On March 29th 2024, Beyonce released her studio album “Cowboy Carter”; anyone who knows even the slightest about Beyonce knows that she was born right down in Houston Texas, so country music is nothing new.
“Cowboy Carter,” which resides in the Country and Americana genre, was a follow-up to the album she released in July of 2022, “Renaissance,” which is mostly in the Dance and House Music genre. During the 2023, 65th annual Grammy awards, Renaissance received nine nominations and won four in the categories of Best Dance/Electronic Recording, Best Dance/Electronic Album, Best R&B Song, and Best Traditional R&B Performance, officially making her the most- awarded artist in Grammy history. That year, she was also nominated for the Album of the Year but lost to three time Grammy award winner, Harry Styles.
Cowboy Carter includes 27 tracks with a handful of collaborations that range from her seven-year-old daughter, Rumi Carter, to big stars like Dolly Parton and Post Malone. The album also features heartfelt tracks such as “Protector” featuring Rumi Cater, which is a loving lullaby from a mother to her children reminding the world that even though she is a singer, songwriter and business woman, she is also a loving mother to her three kids, and it’s also a reminder to her children that she will always encourage and protect them always.
“16 CARRIAGES” is another song on her album in which Beyoncé sings about her career and how everything isn’t always as great as it seems. She sings about being exhausted and repeating the phrase “Only God Knows.” Showing that even with her success, she too struggles with knowing what will come next. There are then the more upbeat songs like “Sweet Honey Buckin’ featuring American rapper and singer songwriter, Shaboozey” and “Texas Hold ‘Em” which peaked at number 1 on the Billboard’s Hot 100.
During the 2025, 67th annual Grammy awards, Beyoncé received the most nominations with 11, which also makes her the most-nominated artist in Grammy award history with a total of 99. She won three of the nominations in the categories of Best Country Album, Best Country Duo/Group Performance, and losing the last four times she was nominated, Beyoncé was awarded with Album of the Year, which surprisingly makes her a first-time album of the year winner. Some would assume “Oh its Beyoncé, she’s won hundreds of awards,” but for the black community, her winning that award means so much, Beyoncé is the first black woman to win the Grammy for Best Country Album and she is also the fourth black woman to win Album of the Year alongside Lauryn Hill, Whitney Houston and Natalie Cole.
New York Times author Ben Sisario called out the Grammys for their disregard to black women, saying that the Grammys has “an embarrassingly poor history for Black women at the Grammys.”Many people feel as though Beyoncé doesn’t deserve the award, with a lot of the themes in social media being, “I didn’t even listen to Cowboy Carter, I didn’t know she even released an album,” and some headlines denying that the album is even country. Others also feel as if Billie Eilish deserved the Album of the Year title with her studio album “Hit Me Hard And Soft,” which is no doubt an amazing album, but the hypocrisy in most of her fan’s statements are far off. One thing about music is that it is for everyone, but sometimes if you aren’t a part of a certain community of people then music becomes more difficult to understand and resonate with and in this case, “Cowboy Carter” targets a younger audience, giving them a new kind of sound away from the atypical country genre. She also sparked the conversation around black artists and country music, and people are talking.
“Cowboy Carter” is nothing short of versatile, filled with songs to dance to and songs to resonate with. I believe that this album will open more doors for Black country artists and inspire younger generations to explore outside of what others might say isn’t for them. Beyoncé shared encouraging words in her speech, saying, “I think genre is a cold word to keep us in our place as artists and I just want to encourage people to do what they’re passionate about and to stay persistent.” Her speech also included her gratitude and giving thanks to God and all the people that featured on the album. “Cowboy Carter” is truly a work of art and Beyoncé has been long overdue for Album of the Year.
