New Sheriff in Town: Beyonce’s Entry Into Country Music

At this past Super Bowl, Beyoncé debuted 2 new singles called, “Texas Hold ’em” and “16 carriages” from her new album “Act II”, which is the second part of her 3-part “Renaissance” project coming out March 29th. This song made Beyoncé the first black woman to lead the Billboard Hot Country chart, and then the overall Hot 100s list. Although this isn’t the first time this has happened in Beyoncé’s career, in 2016 she performed “Daddy Lessons” from her album “Lemonade” with the country band “Dixie Chicks” at the CMA’s. After this performance she faced criticism because she wasn’t “country enough”; some also criticized her liberal-leaning political views. It even got to the point where Orlando’s country radio station, K92.3 got backlash from its listeners for playing the song.

 A listener of Oklahoma’s country station KYKC shared an email from the station to Twitter after his request to play “Texas hold em” where they stated “We do not play Beyoncé on KYKC as we are a country station” This faced immediately condemnation from those who saw the tweet claiming it was blatant racism, KYKC’s copyright holder Roger Harris responded admitting that it was true, but stated “We initially refused to play it in the same manner if someone requested us to play the Rolling Stones on our country station,” 

The person who made the original tweet retorted explaining why he saw a problem with it, saying “This station needs to be held accountable for their blatant racism and discrimination against Beyoncé, this is ridiculous and racist. You guys should be ashamed. I grew up listening to your station,” he added. Many of the user’s followers tweeted at the station doubling down on their support for Beyoncé, claiming it made sense because it was true to her roots as she was born and raised in Houston, TX. After the backlash, the station responded, “We love Beyonce’ we just were behind this country music changeover… But, now that she’s coming out as a country artist, we want to be all over it……we are not fools…we know how big she is and we are happy to air it and wish her the best success.” 

Acclaimed and beloved country artist Dolly Parton showed her support for Beyoncé’s genre change saying, “I’m a big fan of Beyoncé and very excited that she’s done a country album, so congratulations on your Billboard Hot Country number one single, can’t wait to hear the full album!”. 

Radio Host Bobby Bones made the point that artists Post Malone and Kenny Rogers did not receive the same criticism after switching to country. Journalist Taylor Crompton wrote in Time-op-ed that African American artists have had a huge impact on the country genre, and deserve to not be excluded from it. 

A sophomore at Waukee High School, Anisha Prajapati stated “Even though I’m not the biggest fan of Beyoncé, I don’t think she should get hate for making country music”. Senior Olivia Wojciechowski said, “I’m not usually into 

 the country, but I think the songs are good and she has a huge fanbase to give attention to the genre”. However some people didn’t have these same views, Junior Isaiah Frye said, “I don’t have an issue with Beyoncé but I don’t like her country songs”