Beyoncé Giselle Knowles once again made history by not only winning the Best Album of the Year at the 2025 Grammy Awards for “Cowboy Carter” but also by becoming the first-ever black female artist to do so. She is so far the artist with the most Grammy wins ever.
”Cowboy Carter” is Beyoncé’s second album of the most discussed trilogy planned thoroughly by herself, following “Renaissance” as the first one. Here, “Renaissance”, also known as Act I, serves the purpose of the rebirth of dance, house, and the genres that were mainly created by black people. Whereas ”Cowboy Carter”, known as Act II, where it moves to country songs. Though it is not sure yet what the third album of the trilogy will be, some are already guessing the genre will be “Rock and Roll”.
Consisting of a total of 27 tracks, the album is exhibited as a radio broadcast by a station, featuring country singers Linda Martell, Dolly Parton, and Willie Nelson as RJs. “Cowboy Carter” has also won Beyoncé the number-one title on the Billboard 200 for the eighth successive time. Beyoncé’s venture into country music through “Cowboy Carter” has received much appreciation followed by the same amount of backlash.
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Background of the “Cowboy Carter” Album
Beyoncé has always practiced her southern roots and wanted to experiment in this genre as she grew up in Houston, the city of cowboys. Growing up she used to listen to country music and used to attend the Houston livestock and rodeo together with her family. She is explicitly known for fusing genres together.
She performed her first ever country music “Daddy Lessons” from her sixth release “Lemonade” with The Chicks at the 2016 award ceremony. Although she was praised by the critics, she faced a lot of bad responses from country music fans. They tweeted that her music was not suitable for the country music genre because she was “Un-American” and didn’t deserve to perform country music. And also claimed that her music is not country enough.
A few days before releasing her album,“ Cowboy Carter”, she stated on her Instagram handle,
“Born out of an experience that I had years ago where I did not feel welcomed … and it was very clear that I wasn’t.”
“Because of that experience, I did a deeper dive into the history of country music and studied our rich musical archive,”
Beyoncé also said that the criticism she faced the first time releasing a song in this genre forced her to propel past the limitations that were put on her. These experiences encouraged her to create the album “Cowboy Carter”. As she researched history she got to know that half of the country’s cowboys were black and the white people were practically unable to accept the facts. So, as a result, “Cowboy Carter” was made to remove all the bias and racism from the music industry show the world the history of African-American music, and bring a blend in this genre. She has also referred to “Cowboy Carter” as not a country album but rather as a “Beyoncé” album.
Analyzing Cowboy Carter the 67th Grammy Album of the Year
It took 5 years for Beyoncé and her whole team to complete the overall composition of the “Cowboy Carter” album. It is a beautiful outcome of collaboration with some excellent artists like Linda Martell, Tanner Adelle, Dolly Parton, Willie Nelson, Miley Cyrus, and more. Even though “Cowboy Carter” consists of 24 songs, it has some individual hits like “Texas Hold ‘EM”, “16 Carriages”, “Blackbird”, “ll Most Wanted” and “Jolene”.
Texas Hold ‘EM helped Beyoncé to top the Billboard Hot Country chart as the first black female by breaking all the records. It was co-written by 3 Canadian songwriters Nathan Ferraro, Elizabeth Boland, and Megan Bülow. Texas Hold ‘EM starts with a funky melody of Rhiannon Giddens’ banjo. Rhiannon Giddens, a country singer, did an excellent job with the banjo bringing all the country vibe a country song needs. Moreover, using Banjo in the song also had a greater motive which is to enlighten people that Banjo is originally a black instrument.
Texas Hold ‘EM is a card game of poker, basically played around Texas. Representing the slow life country people live by playing poker. Some critics said that Texas Hold ‘EM has similarities in music with the theme song of a children’s show called “Franklin”. But Bruce Cockburn, who wrote the “Franklin” theme song, declined such claims.
16 Carriages is the reflection of the trajectory of Beyoncé’s career, so it’s probably the mirror of her auto-biographical. In the lyrics, when she said,
“It’s been umpteen summers and I’m not in my bed
On the back of the bus and a bunk with the band
Goin’ so hard, gotta choose myself
Underpaid and overwhelmed”
she meant her teenage life when she was struggling to get her life in order and was possibly broke. And overlooked as she was a black female performer. After that she said,
It’s been thirty-eight summers and I’m not in my bed
On the back of the bus and a bunk with the band
Goin’ so hard, now I miss my kids
Overworked and overwhelmed
which represents her present life where she is still struggling to go home because of the fame she is running after. She remains always overwhelmed even though now she is not underpaid anymore.
The young Beyoncé and the adult Beyoncé are going through the same sacrifices, putting their career over everything. The song tells us that everything comes with a price, after all, you can not have it all. The 16 Carriages leaves an emotional impact on one’s mind. Though the song was a bit dull, the vocal practice, controlled vibrato and genre fusion of Beyoncé added the necessary flavors to it.
Blackbird, was originally composed by Paul McCartney and John Lennon of The Beatles in 1968, based on black women’s civil rights movement. This song interprets that blackbirds’ freedom has been snatched away, and they are waiting for their time to be free. Here, Blackbird is a metaphor for the community of Black women. This song is a pure representation of the struggles of African-American women back at the time.
In the lyrics, Paul McCartney said, “Take these broken wings, and learn to fly”. Which implied that they should gather all the strength and courage and they fight with the difficulties until they freed themselves. The making of this song was to showcase to the world, the involvement of the Black Americans in American history. Beyoncé collaborating with the Black country musicians, made her wish of showcasing their resilience and the still ongoing fight for removing racial discriminations, conveyed the message to the society.
Though “Jolene” had multiple renditions, Dolly Parton specifically showed her wish for Beyoncé to cover her song. She also said that she would love it if Beyoncé would take her songs and make them into some powerhouse.
Dolly Parton’s “Jolene” conveyed themes like jealousy, fear of abandonment, and vulnerability toward a girl named Jolene, who is trying to seduce her happy man. And she found out about her because her man says her name “Jolene” in his sleep which makes her miserable and helpless.
“Jolene” is a simple country song, which showed the excellent ability of Dolly Parton’s storytelling in a perfect way. Beyoncé took this song and changed the lyrics into a bit more fierce one, added some pop to it, and made it her very own version. For instance, in “Jolene” Dolly Parton was pleading and begging to the girl, Jolene, whereas Beyoncé, according to the listeners, was threatening that girl.
Beyoncé covering this song, in this way, was not taken positively by many of the listeners. They had much to say about her country songs, mostly “Jolene”. That’s because country music is about country people’s lives, and certainly not about her personal one. Her taking the song and giving a twist to it likely fueled the controversies even more, saying she was reminiscing about her husband cheating on her 10 years ago and this does not make her any cool. Moreover, adding that there are hundreds of covers of this song, much better than her single. Marking this song as the weak point of the “ Cowboy Carter” album.
Miley Cyrus took home a Grammy for the song “II Most Wanted” in the album “Cowboy Carter” with Beyoncé for One Best Country Duo/Group Performance. The harmony, made by the vocals of both of them, is what made the song absolutely mesmerizing. The difference in their voices complements one another specifically in the chorus. She sincerely shouted out to Beyoncé for inviting her to be a part of the album. She further shared her experience in her Instagram id saying,
“Having your name called is an honor that deserves to be celebrated. Just remember for those who don’t, nothing can take away the love and devotion you put into your art. I celebrated the unrecognized artists that created something beautiful and shared it with us.”
Songs like Ya Ya, Levii’s Jeans, Spaghetti, and Bodyguard also caught much attention of the listeners. “Levii’s Jeans” was a collaboration with versatile rapper and singer Post Malone and is an artistic mix of pop and R&B. It is said that, in Beyoncé’s early career in Destiny’s Child, the company Levi’s jeans was one of the few brands that supported them. Upon the release of the song the company renamed their brand from “Levi’s” to “Levii’s”.
Cultural Impact of Act II Cowboy Carter Album
“Cowboy Carter” is a cultural phenomenon, creating new genres and shifting cultural waves. In a report, we see that the total number of artists of songs played on country radio between 2002-2020 was 11,834. And among them, only three were Black female artists. According to experts, the result is much more likely to change as now people are showing interest in Black culture and their style of singing country music.
After the release of Texas Hold ‘EM, we got to see the sudden boost in streaming Black female artists like Tanner Adell, Reyna Roberts, and K Michelle.
“Cowboy Carter” not only has brought diversity to the country music industry but also opened an enormous amount of opportunities for the Black local artists to break the taboo. It has led the world to find out more about the history of Black origins in the country music industry. Award-winning songwriter and author of My Black Country, Alice Randall said to CNN that Beyoncé’s “Cowboy Carter” is reconstructing and deconstructing the country music genre.
I believe even though “Cowboy Carter” does not have enough country vibe to it, Beyoncé has made a plethora of opportunities for the deserving, underrated Black artists by producing the album. If the artists use this Golden chance accordingly, I suppose we will get to see a major change in the country music industry in the upcoming years.
Final Words
Without any doubt, Beyoncé is one of the most popular names in the world of Grammy Awards. But winning the most prestigious 67th Grammy Album of the Year was quite surprising not only for a black woman but also for someone chosen from the country genre.
Let us know in the comment which songs from the 2025 Grammy Album of the Year Cowboy Carter are on your favorite list.