Whatever the reasons, Del Rey herself reaffirmed that an industry shift is here.
“If you can’t already tell by our award winners and our performers, the music business is going country. We’re going country. It’s happening,” the singer said at a pre-Grammys event honoring producer Jack Antonoff.
You may be wondering: what’s surprising about this? Country music has always been popular. And it’s true; country music is huge. But it’s also notoriously insular.
Case in point: When Beyoncé’s new songs dropped, Oklahoma country station KYKC refused to play “Texas Hold ‘Em” because, they said, “Beyoncé is not a country singer.” The fans fought back, and the song was added to their rotation.
But Act II isn’t Beyoncé’s first rodeo. After she performed “Daddy Lessons” with The Chicks at the 2016 CMAs, a swift—and explicitly racist—backlash ensued. It got to the point that the Country Music Academy removed promo footage of the performance from their Instagram account (because it was “unapproved,” the academy claimed, not because the comment section was a disaster. Riiight.).
Beyoncé and The Chicks at the 2016 CMA AwardsImage Group LA/Getty Images
To state the obvious, country music is simply behind the times. Maren Morris and Cassadee Pope have both publicly distanced themselves from the genre due to its general lack of social progress. “I thought I’d like to burn it to the ground and start over,” Morris told The Los Angeles Times last year. “But it’s burning itself down without my help.”
Morris and Pope, along with Musgraves, Kelsea Ballerini, and Mickey Guyton are some of the stars who have continually advocated for issues like racial equality, LGBTQ+ rights, and gun reform. But country music doesn’t always take kindly to outspoken women—just ask The Chicks. Speaking out—and therefore, risking airplay on country radio—is an act of rebellion. What could be more “cowgirl” than that?
Although the rest of Beyoncé’s album is still forthcoming, fans and music experts alike believe Act II will be a reclaiming of Blackness in country music. In an essay for Time, Taylor Crumpton writes of the Houston-born superstar, “[Beyoncé] did not need white validation to classify her country—she has been country for the entirety of her life.”
Queen Bey may not be seeking validation, but it’s there for her nonetheless. With “Texas Hold ‘Em,” Beyoncé became the first Black woman to reach number one on Billboard’s country chart.
As the yeehaw-ification of 2024 continues, time will tell how the rest of her tracks—and Lana’s, for that matter—are embraced in the country community. In the meantime, we’ll be shopping for cowboy boots and looking up flights to Aspen while we wait to hear them.
Lindy Segal is a freelance lifestyle writer and editor whose work has appeared in Harper’s Bazaar, Fast Company, InStyle, and others. She also writes the Substack newsletter “Gatekeeping.”
