Cowboy Carter [2xLP]

The follow-up to Renaissance is a powerful and ambitious country album cast in the singular mold of Beyoncé. She asserts her rightful place in the genre as only a pop star of her incredible talent and influence can do. On Cowboy Carter, Club Renaissance is swapped out for KNTRY Radio Texas, an AM station hosted by an ever-hazy Willie Nelson. Here she re-contextualizes roots music—Americana, folk, country—for a contemporary moment, reminding listeners that Black artists were the genesis of these forms and never stopped playing them, despite what Hollywood or Nashville might have on offer. Even before the album dropped, the associated visuals reignited a dialogue about Black country’s legacy that started in 2018 with the success of Lil Nas X’s “Old Town Road” and Dallas culture critic Bri Malandro’s Yee Haw Agenda. With Beyoncé as conduit, she’s made these historical connections fun, though no one would accuse her of edutainment—she’s performed at the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo more than once. Nor is Cowboy Carter an explicit fuck you to those who rejected her back in 2016, but it’s a show-and-prove that she knows better, that she belonged on that stage, and so do all the Black country and rock musicians she’s brought along to Carter Ranch. Well—the album’s “rodeo chitlin’ circuit” conceit, which refers to the venues that would allow Black musicians to perform in the segregated South, may be an explicit fuck you. — Pitchfork