Cowboy Carter is finally here!
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Beyoncé released her eighth studio album on Friday, March 29, marking the first time the 32-time Grammy winner has released an album so heavily rooted in Country music. Still, she made it clear in a lengthy Instagram caption before the project dropped that “This ain’t a Country album. This is a “Beyoncé” album.”
The songstress first teased the album when she dropped its two lead singles, “TEXAS HOLD ‘EM” and “16 CARRIAGES,” on Superbowl Sunday. With that, she made history, becoming the first Black female artist to reach No. 1 on the Hot Country Songs chart and No. 1 on the Hot 100 Chart with a Country song.
The album features appearances from Miley Cyrus, Post Malone, Shaboozey, Linda Martell, Willie Jones, and Dolly Parton. Beyoncé’s youngest daughter, Rumi Carter, is also on the album, being credited on “PROTECTOR.”
“This album took over five years,” Beyoncé said in a press release. “It’s been really great to have the time and the grace to be able to take my time with it. I was initially going to put Cowboy Carter out first, but with the pandemic, there was too much heaviness in the world. We wanted to dance. We deserved to dance. But I had to trust God’s timing.”
On the track “SWEET â HONEY â BUCKIIN,” Bey references the fact that she’s never won a Grammy for Album of the Year, despite holding the record for most Grammys won in a lifetime.
“A-O-T-Y, I ain’t win (Let’s go) / I ain’t stung by them / Take that s**t on the chin / Come back and f**k up the pen,” she says on the song.
Beyoncé has never been one to complain about these snubs publicly, making the mention of this huge oversight a big surprise to a lot of listeners. Just last month, her husband, Jay-Z, criticized the Grammys for this very reason while he accepted the Dr. Dre Global Impact Award.
While he acknowledged that there are more important things in life than winning Grammys, he also pointed out how ridiculous it is that his wife had never won for any of her albums over the years.
“I don’t want to embarrass this young lady, but she has more Grammys than everyone and never won Album of the Year,” Jay-Z said at the time. “So even by your own metrics, that doesn’t work. Think about that. The most Grammys; never won Album of the Year. That doesn’t work.”
Will Cowboy Carter be the first of Beyoncé’s albums to finally win Album of the Year? We’ll just have to wait and see.