Beyonce barely gives interviews to promote any of her albums or art pieces these days. When she does appear on a magazine cover, usually it’s just about the visuals and then the magazine just creates a cover story out of thin air. So it is with Beyonce’s W Magazine digital cover. She was photographed by Pamela Hanson, and Alex Hawgood wrote a pretty great piece about how Beyonce has ALWAYS been country. Beyonce didn’t wake up one day and decided to “go country.” She’s always been pure Texas, she’s always had a twang, she’s always celebrated her country roots. From W:
COWBOY CARTER is a reminder: Beyoncé wasn’t born a cowboy. She became one. Growing up in Houston, she was a regular at the famed Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo and quickly became transfixed by riders wrestling bulls beneath bright lights. When Destiny’s Child hit the MTV TRL scene, in the late ’90s, the group blended R&B realness with an authentic Texan twang. (A cover of “Sail On,” a country-flavored ballad written by Lionel Richie for the Commodores, appeared on the group’s 1998 self-titled debut.) She returned to her hometown rodeo four times as a member of Destiny’s Child and a budding solo performer. To promote “Dangerously in Love” in 2004, she rode into the stadium on horseback.
Long before yee-haw aesthetics entered the mainstream, Beyoncé was rocking Western getups in the music video for “Bug a Boo,” thanks to her mother, Tina Knowles, a seamstress with Louisiana Creole roots. As Beyoncé put it in a 2016 Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA) Fashion Awards speech, designers hardly jumped at the opportunity to dress “Black country curvy girls,” so Ms. Tina took control and dressed the group as rhinestone cowgirls in matching chaps in a rainbow of colors, glitter-trimmed rancher hats, and asymmetrical rawhide crop tops.
In the years that followed, Beyoncé dueted with the country duo Sugarland for a performance of “Irreplaceable” at the 2007 American Music Awards, wore cowboy couture alongside Lady Gaga for the “Telephone” music video in 2010, taught the world “Daddy Lessons” in 2016, and set off a small-business boom on Etsy for silver 10-gallon hats during last year’s Renaissance World Tour. The long, winding path from chewing fashion gravel to being one of the most revered pop stars of our time no doubt informs the trajectory of her current full-circle cowboy moment.
I love the richly detailed history of Beyonce’s cowboy/country aesthetic. I didn’t know that she appeared at the Houston rodeo as a young performer and then again when she was coming out as a solo performer. It just occurred to me… is Beyonce a Horse Girl?? Anyway, I love Cowboy Carter and, even more than that album, I love that Beyonce is reclaiming this space for herself and other Black artists.
Cover & IGs courtesy of W Magazine.
I am a Texan, and I work in the western horse world as a journalist. Destiny’s Child sold out the Houston rodeo concerts every time—that’s a 70,000 seat arena. The Houston rodeo always has artists from a mix of genres playing the concert that kicks off right after each rodeo performance.
I think a lot of country artists don’t actually have a background on a ranch or riding horses. That’s an unfair expectation to put on Beyonce. Nobody is asking Keith Urban about his upbringing (not) riding horses? Houston is the biggest city in Texas. But Texas is cowboy-adjacent, in that you can throw a rock and find a horse and lots of people wear cowboy hats and boots unironically.
So I don’t think bey is a horse girl. I could be wrong though. I would be thrilled to welcome her to the club if she was, and I hope she does! But that doesn’t have any bearing on her ability to be in the country music space putting out music. But what she IS doing is highlighting the fact that Black cowboys have been around since the beginning. People are paying more attention to Black cowboy culture, and it’s a really neat thing to see. Working in this industry, I love to see new faces and open doors, and I think she is good for the Western industry.
Fellow Horse Girl here! We’d welcome her with open arms, but I haven’t seen anything of her on social with horses, other than photo shoots etc. someone would have noticed, and they do tend to love a celebrity fluff piece of them and their horses.
Yeah, I grew up riding western, still get a little pang until reality of the cost of owning a horse sets in. I feel weird wearing my cowboy boots now since I’m so far out of that lifestyle, so I don’t know if growing up country makes you country still. Anyway, I agree, no one ever asks those other singers to prove how country they are. I feel like most of them probably ride around in side by sides on their massive properties staring at their lawn ornaments at most. Anyone that acts like this album doesn’t belong to country has clearly never set foot in a Texas dance hall where you follow up George Strait with Lil Jon every night. I don’t really care for most of the album, but at the least, Texas hold’em is a perfect song, and I imagine it will get plenty of play at places like Hurricane Harry’s for the next ten years.
RIP Hurricane Harry’s! Such good times. I hear they’re relocating! I wish the Texas Hall of Fame hadn’t been turned into a Walmart. 🙁
You’re so right. Every single night at Texas dancehalls they play country followed by some pop/hip hop/rap. Things that make country, country to me are the guitar/banjo/fiddle/mandolin, and storytelling in a song. She has both of those. I think being from Texas gives her credentials too, but lots of country singers are from random states. I think people are up in arms just because…. well we know why.
@Abby, good point on what makes something country. I really feel like a lot of top artists in country music are missing all of those things.
That was fascinating!
…B’s hats are made by Mexican milliner Gladys Tamez, from my hometown in Tamaulipas!😍
She looks great as a cowgirl. Yee haw!
Then she needs to learn how to wear a cowboy hat. There is a front and a back, and I noticed in some of her pictures she has it on backwards.