Beyoncé releasing a new album is an event. Not only because she is one of the biggest pop stars in the world, but also because her music begs to be dissected with a fine-tooth comb. We started seeing her develop projects more focused on looking at a particular subject from different angles and exploring new genres with her music in 2016 with the release of Lemonade, a vulnerable album on which she openly calls out her husband’s infidelity. In 2022, she released Renaissance, a treasure trove of samples, interpolations, songwriters, producers, history, references, glitz, and glamor celebrating the queer ballroom community that had a hand in igniting the house genre. Cowboy Carter, released today after seven weeks of growing anticipation, builds on this idea of paying homage to the Black musical pioneers who paved the way.
This album has been in the making for the past five years. When Beyoncé released the album artwork earlier this month, she wrote in an Instagram caption that the project was “born out of an experience that I had years ago where I did not feel welcomed.” Many speculated that she was referring to her 2016 CMAs performance of “Daddy Lessons” with the Chicks, who themselves had their own rocky history with the country establishment. The performance was divisive, and some detractors did not even bother to hide the racism baked into their rejection of it.
She went on to write in the caption, “The criticisms I faced when I first entered this genre forced me to propel past the limitations that were put on me. Act II is a result of challenging myself, and taking my khbrknews to bend and blend genres together to create this body of work.” In a press release put out on Friday, Beyoncé said that she initially planned to release Cowboy Carter before Renaissance, but the COVID-19 pandemic made her change her mind. “There was too much heaviness in the world,” she says. “We wanted to dance. We deserved to dance. But I had to trust God’s…
