We are officially 10 days away from the release of Beyoncé’s next album, Cowboy Carter.
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Beyoncé took to Instagram on Tuesday, March 19, to start the 10-day countdown, revealing the album artwork for her upcoming project.
Just like the cover for Act I: Renaissance, Bey also sits atop a horse for Act II, but this time, she’s dressed in red, white and blue as she waves an American flag and wears a sash that reads the title of the album: Cowboy Carter.
The 32-time Grammy winner wrote a lengthy caption to go along with the artwork reveal, first thanking fans for so heavily supporting the album’s singles, “TEXAS HOLD ‘EM” and “16 CARRIAGES.” While Bey said she “feel[s] honored to be the first Black woman with the number one single on the Hot Country Songs chart,” she went on to say that she hopes “years from now, the mention of an artist’s race, as it relates to releasing genres of music, will be irrelevant.”
Beyoncé went on to reveal that this album has been five years in the making, going on to mention a specific experience that led to her learning more about country music. She said Cowboy Carter was “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.”
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While she didn’t mention specifics, it’s safe to assume the experience she’s talking about is the 2016 Country Music Awards, when she took the stage to perform her hit “Daddy Lessons” with The Chicks, then known as the Dixie Chicks. At the time, TMZ reported that CMA execs were “concerned about the reaction to Beyoncé’s support and the support of the Dixie Chicks for the Black Lives Matter movement.” Shortly after, the performance was completely scrubbed from the internet.
Though that experience was anything but positive, Bey admitted that it made her do a deep dive into the country genre, which eventually led to this album. She also revealed that she will have multiple collaborations on the project “with some brilliant artists who I deeply respect.”
She concluded her caption by clarifying: “This ain’t a Country album. This is a ‘Beyoncé’ album.”
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Cowboy Carter is set to hit streaming platforms on March 29.
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