Beyonce goes cowboycore with new album 激しい on Texas roots

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Beyonce has been a showbiz fixture for nearly three １０年間s, shapeshifting from girl group lead and pop 皇后 to Hollywood actor and 商売／仕事 mogul.

But for all the caps she's worn, the Houston-bred megastar's cowboy hat has stayed within reach: Queen Bey has always been country.

Now she's 堅固に entering her yeehaw 時代: "Cowboy Carter," the second 行為／法令／行動する of her "Renaissance" 事業／計画（する）, is 始める，決める to 減少（する） Friday at midnight (0400 GMT).

From the 声の harmonies of 運命's Child to the 無法者 twang of 2016's "Daddy Lessons," Beyonce has long paid homage to her southern 遺産, 会社にする／組み込むing country 影響（力）s into her music, style and visual art.

A Texan raised by a mother from Louisiana and father from Alabama, the singer -- who has 繰り返して rewritten music's marketing playbook -- has made （疑いを）晴らす she will fully celebrate her roots on her new 事業／計画（する）.

She has already topped the charts with the first two （テニスなどの）シングルス off the album -- "Texas 持つ／拘留する 'Em" and "16 Carriages," dropped during February's 最高の Bowl.

にもかかわらず, her 人気 and 影響（力） -- she has more Grammy 勝利，勝つs than any other artist in the 商売／仕事 -- have 小衝突d up against the 圧倒的に white, male gatekeepers of country music, who have long dictated the genre's 境界s.

She 顕著に received 人種差別主義者 comments after 成し遂げるing what was then her most country song to date, "Daddy Lessons," at the 2016 Country Music 協会 Awards と一緒に The Chicks.

But Bey is not 支援 負かす／撃墜する.

"The 批評s I 直面するd when I first entered this genre 軍隊d me to 推進する past the 制限s that were put on me," she said on Instagram recently.

"行為／法令／行動する ii is a result of challenging myself, and taking my time to bend and blend genres together to create this 団体／死体 of work."

黒人／ボイコット artists have always been instrumental to th e genre, but （激しい）反発 is たびたび（訪れる）.

Lil Nas X -- the 夜通し sensation whose 感染性の, 記録，記録的な／記録する-breaking "Old Town Road" paired banjo twangs with 強くたたくing bass -- was scrapped from Billboard's country chart, 誘発する／引き起こすing 批評 he was dubbed hip-hop because he is 黒人／ボイコット.

"Whenever a 黒人／ボイコット artist puts out a country song, the judgment, comments, and opinions come 厚い and 急速な／放蕩な," the Grammy-winning Rhiannon Giddens, who features on "Texas 持つ／拘留する 'Em," wrote in a 最近の column in The 後見人.

"Let's stop pretending that the 乱暴／暴力を加える surrounding this 最新の 選び出す／独身 is about anything other than people trying to 保護する their nostalgia for a pure ethnically white tradition that never was," Giddens said.

- 'Policing the 国境s' -

For Charles Hughes, author of the 調書をとる／予約する "Country Soul: Making Music and Making Race in the American South," Beyonce's country 時代 is "（人命などを）奪う，主張するing of part of her musical 身元 and part of her Houstonness."

And yet "黒人／ボイコット and brown artists are 要求するd by a white-支配するd music 産業, and a white-支配するd understanding of country music... to 証明する their bona fides," he said.

"It has nothing to do with the music they're making."

In the last 15 years in particular, Beyonce "has really embraced and engaged with her Texanness," Hughes told AFP. "Anybody 支払う／賃金ing attention can't be too surprised here."

"Yet it still 刺激するd this 抱擁する reckoning, once again, where you had people 説, 'Oh, she can't be country,'" he said, 述べるing the reaction as an old 差し控える in Nashville "used as a 機械装置 of policing the 国境s around the music."

Holly G, who 設立するd the 黒人／ボイコット Opry to showcase 黒人／ボイコット artists in country three years ago, told AFP "country music fans typically like to think of themselves as traditionalists, which is a bit ironic because 黒人／ボイコット people invented country music."

"There's always that pushback when there's something new or something different coming into the space," she continued. "Unfortunately for them, she's much more powerful than they are."

In 2022 Beyonce 解放（する）d 行為／法令／行動する I of "Renaissance," a pulsating collection of club 跡をつけるs rooted in disco history, which 最高潮の場面d the 黒人／ボイコット, queer and working-class communities who molded electronic dance and house.

Hughes said she 明確に made 成果／努力s to understand the history of that scene, and her choice of 協力者s for 行為／法令／行動する II shows a 類似の sensibility.

And no 事柄 how Nashville 反応するs to "Cowboy Carter," Beyonce has made it （疑いを）晴らす she'll have the last word.

"This ain't a Country album," she 地位，任命するd recently. "This is a 'Beyonce' album."