There are a lot of people that are loving what they’ve heard so far from Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter album, but I can tell you there’s at least one person that hates everything about it.
The project, which Beyoncé says explicitly “ain’t a country album,” although confesses she did a “deep dive into the history of country” for, is set to release in its entirety on March 29th. Music fans have already gotten tastes of what the country album could be like with singles “Texas Hold ‘Em” and “16 Carriages.”
“Texas Hold ‘Em” made its debut at number one on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart, making Beyoncé the first black female artist to debut at the top spot. There’s even been plenty of support within the country music world for Beyoncé’s country project, with Dolly Parton congratulating the pop/R&B artist for her accomplishment.
But on the flip side, one artist within the hip-hop genre doesn’t appear to be a big fan of Beyoncé’s move to towards the country music world. Harlem rapper Azealia Banks took to social media to completely eviscerate Cowboy Carter, first suggesting that the name of the album could have used some work:
“Wow we didn’t even try to put even a little effort into a more artistic title? Sis I live for whiteyounce Donatella Bianca Bardot DOWN, but I’m kind of ashamed at how you switch from baobab trees and ‘Black Parade’ to this literal pick me stuff… you’re always sharing your platform with white women who are so jealous of you but have such a long history of sabotaging other Black women’s careers.
And that was just the tip of the iceberg. Banks presumably took a lot of time out of her day to complete analyze, break down, and bash anything and everything about Beyoncé’s “country” project. The full message is included below, but I took some time to transcribe some of the highlights of Azealia Bank’s argument.
Like how Beyoncé could have, or should have, approached the country album in the rapper’s opinion:
“There was so much pertinent cultural commentary to be made here. I don’t get why you have to be in white woman cosplay to make – (what’s really folk/bluegrass/adult contemporary) facsimile ‘country’ music…. There could have been a humor to it which would bestow upon you even a smidgen of personality to make you an interesting person again… but you’re reinforcing the false rhetoric that country music is a post civil war white art form.
And subsequently reinforcing the idea that there is no racism, segregation, slavery, violence, theft, massacres, plagues, manifest destiny craziness that form the bedrock of epithets like ‘Proud to Be an American,’ or ‘God Bless the USA.'”
If that font is a little too small for you, Banks went on to say that Country Carter is essentially “playing cowboy” to appeal to white people, while simultaneously stealing the spotlight away from black artists that were already working within the country music genre. The hip-hop artist also stated that established country artists like Carrie Underwood and Kelsea Ballerini could have written and produced better songs than the one’s Beyonce has put out:
“In 2024, is being the first black woman to have a number one on the country charts an accomplishment when you’ve clearly used your capitalist advantage to smother out the currently existing black artists in country music who have been grinding for years but don’t have money to send fruit plates and backstage passes to Grammy voters?
Sis I’m sorry to rain on your parade but there’s actually nothing monumental about it. Had you made a great country song – going number one should be the headline without the weird race part. But like, Kelsea Ballerini and Carrie Underwood have better songs than whatever nauseating little Bey on the prairie stuff is going on.
’16 Carriages doesn’t even make sense in context. What kind of pilgrim fantasy were you having. You’re from the 1980’s Houston, TX, a major metropolis. Was it really giving horse and buggy sis? Come on now.”
Yikes… say what you want about Banks’ social media rant against Beyoncé, but “Little Bey on the Prairie” is a rather funny jab. I wonder how things would have gone down if that was the name of the album instead.
Is it too late for Beyoncé to work out a diss track towards Azealia Banks and include it in her upcoming album? If not, the “Bey Hive” will just have to find a way to make one of Beyoncé’s tracks work as one. Could “Texas Hold ‘Em” work?
