Switched on Pop - Beyoncé's Country

Episode Date: February 27, 2024

Renaissance Act II truthers, your time has come: There’s new music from Beyoncé, and boy, is it country. Her two new singles dropped two weeks ago, and in the time since, they’ve both climbed up the chart and taken the internet by storm. There’s the barnstorming stomp and holler ditty “TEXAS HOLD 'EM,” which just notched the top spot on the Billboard Hot 100, and the dark horse “16 CARRIAGES,” a autobiographical work song detailing Beyoncé’s roots in Houston, Texas. Charlie and Nate unpack both of these two songs, highlighting their structures, inspirations, and collaborators, from Raphael Saddiq to Rhiannon Giddens. Then, producer Reanna Cruz speaks to music journalist Taylor Crumpton, whose article for Time, “Beyoncé Has Always Been Country” lays out the cultural implications of this sonic pivot for one of the biggest artists of all time.  Sign up for the Switched On Pop Newsletter Songs Discussed Beyoncé - Texas Hold 'Em, 16 Carriages, Break My Soul, Formation, Daddy Lessons Dink Roberts - Georgia Buck Carolina Chocolate Drops - Hit 'Em Up Style Elvis Presley - Mystery Train Unidentified African American Chain Gang - Waterboy, Run James Carter and the Prisoners - Po Lazarus Robert Randolph and the Family Band - Find a Way Vince Gill ft Justus West- High Lonesome Sound More Read Taylor Crumpton's article Beyoncé Has Always Been Country Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

If you're tired of endless scrolling to figure out where to eat, same. I'm Stephanie Wu, editor-in-chief of Eater. We've just launched the new-ish and way better Eater app. It has all the restaurants we love, gives you personalized picks wherever you are, and serves up smarter search results just for you. You can find my list of the best places for martinis and fries in New York City. And save your favorite spots, share lists, follow editors, and book right in the app. Download the eater app at eaterapp.com.

It's free for iOS users. Welcome to Switchdom Pop. I'm musicologist Nate Sloan. And I'm songwriter Charlie Harding. Beyonce has released two singles from her upcoming Project Renaissance Act 2, a sequel to 2022's Renaissance. And these new songs sound very different. They are country music,

like foot stomping, banjo plucking, fiddle-blowing, country music. Heck yeah. Two weeks since she released these singles, and she's already breaking records, becoming the first black woman to top the country charts. There's been a ton of attention

to this new sonic turn. Charlie, I want to put these songs under our microscope to understand why they're so successful intrinsically, okay? And then finally, I want to bring in music journalists,

Taylor Crumpton, to learn why Beyonce has always been country. So we've got two songs, which we start with? We've got to take it to the hoe down. That's Texas Holden, and she wasn't lying about that ho-down. Yeah, I got to be honest, when I first heard this, I was like,

Mm, stomping holler music. That was big when you and I had a bluegrass band in the early 2010s. I don't know if I need any more of that. You're talking about, like, the lumineers and related acts? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, it was kind of a thing to put on a bunch of flannel. Suspenders and straw hats. your own pickles, play the mandolin, and, you know, stomp and holler. And that was a thing. And I thought

we moved past it. So I had some memory traces of that era. And yet, the more I listen to this song, I want to join the Ho Down. I've really grown to love it. Let's just acknowledge straight off. This is a radical departure for Vianz. It's incredibly acoustic. It's very minimal in a lot ways. I mean, certainly in terms of percussion, you talked about stomping. That's basically the only drumming in this song is, is that stomp and clap. Yeah, well, there's a, there's a kick drum that sounds almost to me like a, what do you call the big held drums that you use in a marching band like New Orleans style? Yeah, I mean, I like a walking bass drum. I'm not sure with the technical term. Yeah, it kind of has that kind of vibe, which makes sense.

She's got New Orleans roots as well. Yeah. Even though this is Texas Hold'em. And you have that boom, bum, bum, bum, bum, kind of rhythm, which you might hear in a contemporary... No, no, no, no. It's just four on the floor. No, it's not.

Take it to the instrumental. All right, let's hear it. Where are we going? Where are we going here? The first section? Yeah, just play it from the beginning. There's an instrumental version, so you can hear it better. Boom, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, that's the rhythm.

Ah, okay, okay. That's not really syncopated, but... Oh, no, no, no, you're right. No, I didn't, I didn't do it quite right the first time around. But it does remind me of what you might hear in, like, traditional jazz, outdoor party music in Orleans. Okay, we'll give it to you. We'll give it to you. But I maintain, despite your protestations, Charlie, that this is an incredibly minimal texture for an artist known for her, like, incredibly maximalist syncopated percussion.

It's just a bass drum, a kick. there's no high hats. There's no, I'm not even sure if there's a snare in here. It's very stripped down. Yeah, yeah. It's so minimal that even had to add crickets. Okay, wait, can we hear that?

Because I wasn't sure if that was happening like outside my house or in the track. Yeah, the crickets are timed to the offbeat. Okay, that's beautiful, beautiful. Rhythmic crickets. So we've got this surprising, acoustic kind of stripped down texture. I said this is a ho-down.

I mean that, you know, I anticipate people dancing to this song. At Texas honky-tons, I'm sure on TikTok, like, this is meant for dancing. This is legit. Yes. There's this great call and response in the vocal that makes you feel like you're a part of this celebration. And then there's the woo's. That's the hallers. side of the stomp and holler. So this song, I think it's really an invitation to move your body.

I don't think lyrically, it's particularly deep. Don't be a bitch, come take it to the floor now. Like, there's not a lot of subtlety to that. But I don't think that's the point. I think this is of these two songs, and we'll get to talk about 16 carriages, it's companion in a bit. I think this is more just out there, let's have a good time song. Yeah, I don't know. I mean, what about that section you just played, though? Like, to me, is a little bit. of the Bruce Springsteen blues in the verse, gospel, and the chorus, where, you know, she's singing about all the woes of the world. There's a tornado in my city and people being held down.

And the solution is, you know, get out and dance. So there's at least some contrast in the verse to the chorus. It's not all just dance, stomp and holler. But I do concede that it's not, yeah, this is not the deep personal narrative that we're going to hear later on in 16 carriages. What really excited me about this track, Charlie, are some of the subtle choices that are kind of under the surface that really establish this song

as paying fealty to the roots of country music. And I'd love to just go through a few of those with you quickly. The first one happens at the very beginning of the song, the first thing we hear. Sounds like a good old band we used to have, simpler times. That is a banjo played by none other than Riannon Giddens. And that name may be familiar. Certainly. Rianan is a remarkable figure in American music. Yeah.

Someone who helped revive this semi-forgotten tradition of black country music, black string bands, black jug bands with her group, the Carolina Chocolate Drops. Yeah. And from there has gone on to have this wild career that's ranging from like hosting a podcast, about opera to actually writing her own Pulitzer Prize winning opera, Omar. So she's just like this extraordinary figure. And to hear her just unaccompanied at the start of this track is so cool.

And like a really telling choice, I think, by Beyonce to foreground this musician at the start of the track. Oh, it needs to blowing out a banjo. What's about to happen. Okay. So let's talk a little bit more about this banjo because there's a very distinct way that it's being played. And I do need to out myself as an amateur banjo player myself now to illustrate this what we're hearing.

Okay, so forgive me, I'm going to do a poor approximation of this banjo part for you. Okay, pretty. This is a technique called claw hammer banjo. Right. There's two styles of playing banjo. One is called Scruggs, which is how you usually play with the finger picks and bright and twangy and you think country. But this is different. This is the other technique.

That's right. This is claw hammer. also called frailing or old time banjo. And what I'm doing here is actually playing the strings with the back of my finger. The fingernail is how I'm plucking the strings. And then I'm using my thumb to play the high string. So it creates this distinctive kind of like chugging sound. It's got this this locomotive energy and this a certain kind of darkness that contrasts. with this other style that you were describing, Charlie, the Scruggs three-finger pickin style, which is associated with bluegrass, and it's a little more delicate and spicy.

Let me attempt this version now. Okay, here's the three-finger sound. I can attest that it is early in the morning and that if later in the evening you give Nate two or three shots of whiskey, his banjo playing is on fire. Yeah, all I've had is a cup of tea, which is not. sufficient to really reel off a Scrugg style banjo. So that was Foggy Mountain Breakdown. So I just want to point out that not only the instrument that we're hearing here is important, but the way it's being played in this claw hammer style. Yeah. Like if you go to listen to an incredible source of the black southern banjo

tradition, a player like Dink Roberts, who you can find preserved on an album called Black banjo Songsters of the South by Smithsonian Function. These were all recorded in the 70s, I think, and you can hear him using this claw hammer sound on a song like Georgia Buck. And he's stomping along. He's stomping too, by the way. And Rianne and Giddens actually covered that song. So I think when you hear that banjo intro in Texas Holden, you're really hearing this whole deep history of particularly black southern banjo. play. I think when most people think of a banjo, they think of this big steel instrument that is

extremely loud and associated with like contemporary country or blue grass. This is a gut string open back banjo. I could be wrong. It sounds like it might even be a fretless banjo. And this would be a banjo much more akin to the original instrument, which descends from West African gourd instruments and is developed in the Caribbean. So for Beyonce to open this project and say, hey, this is a country song. She's doing much more than saying this is a country song. She's, I think as you put it, demonstrating a much deeper roots of country

that are often neglected and forgotten. Rian and Giddens actually plays a gourd banjo, so that could be what we're hearing. So we've got this banjo sound at the beginning, and let me peel away one other layer. It's the harmonic form of the song. One of the first things I gravitated to when I heard this is this is a 12-bar blues.

Oh, yeah. This is a 12-bar blues, Charlie. We haven't had one of these topping the charts in so long. I'm so freaking excited. Here's what I'm talking about, okay? This is a classic, like, American form. It's not always 12 bars. There's a million variations to it, but this one follows it pretty exactly.

Let me move over to the piano here for a moment, and I'll just, like, take us through this. Okay, so here's Texas Hold'em. We're on a one chord, a tonic root chord. We hear the melody on top. And now we're going to move up to the four chord. Same melody going. Different harmony. Harmony goes back to the one chord.

And now the harmonies move up to the five chord. New melody. Down to the four chord. And back down to the one. It's going to wrap everything up. That's the 12 bar blues. It's the same thing you hear in Hound Dog by Big Mama Thornton. Here's that one chord.

Moving up to the four right here. Same melody. Back down to the one. Up to the five, four, one. Exact same chord progression. This is like such a classic progression. It was huge at the beginning of the rock era. And it was also big in country music.

Hank Williams wrote 12 bar blues songs. Jimmy Rogers with Lewis Armstrong had a hit in 19. 1930 blue yodel number nine that was a 12 bar blues. This is one of those places where black musical tradition and white hillbilly southern tradition kind of meet in the history of American music. This is like that point of overlap. You hear this this blues tradition as you're pointing out this is when all this different music was kind of one thing. Country, rock and roll, R&B all kind of existed in a certain flavor of sound and it has blues and it and you can hear, I think, even the way you were playing the piano there, all these sort of

glide notes, these sort of bluesy notes in between what's in the scale, you can hear sort of that bluesier inflection of singing in Beyonce's voice. So again, making a country song, but going deeper into some of the earlier roots of country and giving us some blues, I think that's really neat. I actually hadn't identified that very obvious form that's being played here. Well, I get five points then, and we'll tally them up at the end. Five points. And there will be a winner and they will get to sing a song at the end of the podcast. Oh, I hope it's you.

I think I'll let you win. Now, there's another reference in here that doesn't go backwards in time, but actually goes laterally. And this was a cool kind of curveball when I heard it. Let's go to the outro of this song. Oh, I'm so glad you're taking us to the outro. I love the outro. Whistling, Rihanna Giddens on viola. Great adlibs.

That feels like a house music break. I couldn't agree more, Charlie. That's exactly what I thought, too. That piano, the sound of it, the timbre of it, the register of it, kind of low, the rhythm of it. Here's what it sounds like, isolated. Yeah, that's not a country rhythm. I couldn't agree more. That sounds like classic house piano.

Yeah. Maybe a version of which you would encounter on Renaissance, now I guess we can call it Act 1 so retroactively. Right, right. On a song like Break My Soul. There it is. So in some ways that outro is a bit out of left field. Yeah. But on the other hand, maybe it provides this connective tissue between Renaissance part one and part two and sort of establishing.

these songs is in the same universe. We've got something old, we've got something new. I even like how they produce that piano sound. Typically, the house piano is this very digital corg M1 piano sound, which you hear on Break My Soul. But on Texas Hold'em, it's an equally bright piano, but it sounds a little bit more honky-tong. And you can even hear that they put some tape warble on it,

so it sounds even more vintage. Really playing with our sense of space and time, Is it something old or is it something new? A great coda to this work. Let's hear that one more time. You can hear the tape warble? That is so fire. It all sounds very live, right?

Like, if this is a stomp and holler, take it to the ho-down, you can feel the instruments in the room. It sounds like a live record. It doesn't sound like a contemporary Beyonce record, which might be a dryer or have very lush, creative reverbs in production. It sounds like you're in a room all jamming along, having good time whistling, stopping your feet.

So there's one side of Beyonce's new musical sound. Texas Hold'em, a track which reaches into the musical past and presence simultaneously. Charlie, let's take a quick break. And when we come back, I want to dig into the other side of this coin. 16 carriages. What are we hearing here? How is she taking this country sound in different directions? Maria, you have a podcast now and you need to start acting like it.

What's the first step as a podcaster? Well, you have to ask lots of questions. I'm Maria Sharpova, and I'm hosting a new podcast called Pretty Tough. Every week, I'm sitting down with trailblazing women at the top of their game to discuss ambition, work ethic, and the ups and downs that come on the path to achieving greatness. I have a few pretty tough questions for you. Okay. Ready? Ready.

Do not sugarcoat something for me. No. No. No. We'll dive into their stories and get valuable insights from top executives, actors, entrepreneurs, and, other individuals who have inspired me so much in my own journey. Pretty tough is your front row seat to the women who have demonstrated the power in being unapologetic in their pursuits.

I hope you'll join us. New episodes drop Wednesdays on YouTube or in your favorite podcast app. Texas Holden shows us a bright, stomping, hollering side of Beyonce's new sound. I think when we turn to her other release, 16 carriages, we're going to hear something very different. When I first heard the song, I had a very powerful reaction to just the sonics of it all. But I didn't quite know what it meant. And so I was texting with some friends being like, hey, what do you feel about these new Beyonce songs? And my friend Esteban Kelly, who's the executive director of the U.S. Federation of Worker Cooperatives and also a worker owner and co-founder of the Anti-oppression Resource and Training Alliance, he really captured the meaning of this.

new work, and it opened up 16 carriages for me in a new way. Here's Esteban. Hi, switched on pop crew. The main thing that keeps popping up for me is how the Americana that she's digging into parallels what I see Jordan Peel doing, especially in his film, Nope, that was rooting things that are seen as classic Americana, and having an African-American artist in the their imperial phase, use the power of that to kind of break through the erasure of how fundamental African-American culture was for these mediums. So for Jordan Peel, Innobe, that was around film, that was also around the reclamation of the lacquero and how the first cowboys were black. For Beyonce, I see her doing a very similar thing. And so there's something about having reached a

certain status as an artist that gives you the freedom and the range to be able to say, you all need to see how fundamental black people were for the creation of this genre or this medium. When Esteban shared this voice note with me, it helped me realize that Beyonce is not just making history as the first black woman with the number one country song, but that she's actually making black country music. And when I realized that, 16 carriages opened up for me. Let's listen to 16 Carriages one more time from the top. When I heard that incessant stomping that was happening in 16 carriages, it maybe realized that this is in the tradition of a work song. Work songs are songs that collective laborers sing to be able to get through the repetitive motion of hard physical labor.

There's all kinds of work songs, field songs, fishing songs, railroad songs. Many of these work songs descend from African-American roots of formerly enslaved people, post-mancipation, many free people were later incarcerated to maintain free labor in the South and put into chain gangs where they would be required to build roads. And you can hear this kind of sound in a recording like Waterboy Run from a chain gang in 1929. Or you might remember the 2015. Oh, Brother War Out Thou, which opened the soundtrack with the song Po Lazarus, which is a recording of a group of black men in prison chopping logs.

Anyways, back to 16 carriages. You can hear that same sound of Poe Lazarus and the chain gain working and stomping in the way that she's saying 16 carriages. 16 carriages driving away while I watch them ride with my dreams away to the summer sunset. Every single time she returns to this refrain, because like the other song, it's not so much of a typical verse chorus song. This just has like refrain after refrain after refrain of 16 carriages, like keep on working. Let's hear the next one at 22 seconds. And every time she sings this refrain, 16 carriages, more people join in. It goes from a stomp to a clap.

And eventually a whole orchestra joins in. It just gets bigger and bigger and bigger. So I think this was very clearly in that tradition of a work song. Like even when you think about the 16 carriages, for me, they could be 16 tour buses. She's known for having enormous tour bus caravan going around. It also evokes the Western expansion migration in the 19th century, where the National Archives said that 40 to 60,000 and formerly enslaved people made the trip. from the south out to the west.

They could be in carriages. And she's singing about going to work. Literally this whole song is about her working life. 15, the innocence was going to stray. Had to leave my home at an early age. So since age 15, she's been working, and still today, she is doing the same hustle. There's been 38 summers and I'm running my bed. On the back of the bus and a bunk with a bed.

Going so hard. And so when she's singing about being on the And so when she's singing about being on a long black road and all the tears I fight, she's putting herself in the tradition of these chain gain work songs that were literally building the roads that she's driving on her tour bus. I think it's pretty powerful musical statement. Six and Carriages also makes me think of there's a tradition in like blues and country music of a train that's 16 coaches long.

You hear that in Mississippi, Fred McDowell, this train I ride, and Elvis Presley's mystery train. So, yeah, there's a lot of both specific but also kind of open-ended references, and I am very struck by the idea of hearing this as

a work song and connecting back to this deep musical lineage, which reminds us of some of the most painful parts of American history and American reality, but is also one of the richest sources of American musical history. So maybe we shouldn't be surprised, right? This is exactly what she did on Renaissance Act 1.

She brought in the legends and elders of house music and celebrated its queer and black roots through intentional naming and sampling and interpolation. And of course she's going to do that on Renaissance Act 2. One of the ways that she does that is, again, bringing in musicians like Ranan Giddens who are carrying that tradition and on 16 carriages. We also get a bunch of musicians who are bringing parts of black Americana into country. For example, we have pedal steel player Robert Randolph, who's known not so much for the Hawaiian-esque country stuff. pedal steel, but more for the blues and gospel and sacred steel approach to playing the pedal steel.

Also notably, we have church organ on the song. It's been umpteen summers and I'm not in my bed on the back of the bus and a bunk with the band. Going so hard got to choose myself underpaid and overwhelmed. Of course, that's not like a pipe organ and an old European church. That's an electric organ that we would hear in a black gospel church being played by Gaffer William's who is a contemporary gospel producer who has recently found an audience on TikTok. And then in addition, we have Justice West, an R&B and hip-hop session guitar player, who you might have seen in the Mac Miller Tiny Desk concert.

He's played alongside Jasmine Sullivan, Snoop Dog, John Legend, Alicia Keys, Future. But he's known for being able to play across all kinds of styles. And one of his earliest gigs was playing alongside country star. Vince Gill, and this guy can do chicken pickin like any great Nashville country player. Beautiful guitar here, and all of this playing reminds me that we have to continue to unwork the overwrought criticism of Beyonce, that she has too many songwriters and people collaborating on her albums and, you know, what is she really doing? It seems like what she's doing here to me is that she's highlighting the both historic and contemporary players of a

American Black Music and paying her dues, giving respect, and creating some really fabulous new music alongside these players. There's a lot that's really exciting about these new Beyonce releases. And as we discussed, they're already making an impact. But at the same time, we might expect some backlash from certain corners of the country music industry. And we also might see a reticence to fully embrace her, as our friend Chris Malanford. the chart guru pointed out, while Beyonce's number one on the country chart, she's only in the 50s when it comes to country airplay. So will country radio really embrace her? These are things that remain to be seen. I think to better understand what this music is going to mean in terms

of a larger cultural context, we should talk to Taylor Crumpton, the journalist whose article for Time magazine was titled, Beyonce has always been country. Our producer, Rihanna Cruz, spoke to Taylor about what this is going to mean, how Beyonce is going to be accepted, and why this project might rewrite some ideas about country music. Let's let them take the episode out. My name is Taylor Crumpton. I'm a music, pop culture, and politics writer from Dallas, Texas. Your article, Beyonce has always been country, is incredible. I saw it got a Tina Noel shout out.

You start the article with the incredible sentence, The Greatest Lie, Country Music Ever Told, was convincing the world that it is white. Can you talk about that for a second and what the historical precedent is of black people in country music? You know, across the world, when you hear the word country, the first thing that comes to mind is John Wayne or a cowboy,

maybe the Beverly Hillbillies depending on your age and your generation. But it's always white and it's traditionally male. And that was a creation of not only the American music industry, but also the film and TV industry as well. Because when these technologies came into being, they had to figure out how to market to the consumer. And the consumer for country music was supposed to be white, rural, southern, western. The unfortunate thing is that they failed to realize that those people who live in those regions in the United States have always been multicultural and a significant portion of them have been African-Americans. So even at its origin, it's multiracial, but the commercialization of country music erased any type of blackness from it today.

I could imagine there's a sort of parallel there, right, with like radio and the music industry writ large labeling music by black people as urban, contrary to the country narrative of city versus farm life. We see that in our politics today when they're talking about rules. or small town. The implication is a white working class, a white minor in West Virginia, a farmer in Oklahoma. Without understanding, there are black farmers who are being disproportionately affected by all of these policies. We think about West Virginia, a significant amount of West Virginians are living in low-income, is errant and impoverished. Like, the music speaks to that.

And there was a moment in folk music that was very counter-revolutionary, that was very activist and actin-oriented, right? But that is not trendy and that is not what country music today wants itself to be. And, you know, it's shocking to see how all three other genre in America has been fully integrated, but country music remains to be this last week in this last hope. And you have to realize if our nation is changing not only in terms of race, gender, sexual identity, why is this one genre very much adamant about reflecting America of the past? And what does that say if there's one pillar of America's past that doesn't want to conform or embrace the future? So let's look specifically at the woman in question, Beyonce. What is the

precedent in her career for doing country music? Beyonce's always been country. There have been so many lyrics throughout her career where she has referred to herself as a country ass, right? I was listening to Formation earlier today. She references multiple time her country identity. Daddy lessons. That's a country song. She performed at the CMA. Whether people were paying attention to what she was putting out there, not only has it been present in her lyrics, her videography, her fashion, her Renaissance tour. You know, she has been hinting. at this throughout the entirety of her life and has found a way to put that message out there in her way, which sometimes I think people didn't understand because of her race and now because

of her class, which I think is interesting. You mentioned in your article that there was backlash to daddy lessons from the country industry. Can you speak about that? And did it extend beyond that CMA's performance? So when Beyonce performed daddy lessons at the country music awards, we have to understand what part of our nation was really angry at her, right? And that was the part that was not aligned what was currently happening in the culture, which was the Black Lives Matter movement. And Beyonce, like many black entertainers, when it was at its peak, was showcasing support in solidarity. Her and Jay-Z had bailed out protesters, overtly was aligning themselves with this movement and showing through music and activism, you know, the infamous Super Bowl halftime show,

that they were endorsing this, that they were co-stigning it, that their Black Lives Matter too. And because at this time, and even still today, country music has always embraced a America First mentality in the 21st century, right? Even when the chicks spoke out against President George Bush, they were blacklisted from the country music industry. So when you have Beyonce with the chicks, both women from Texas, both pioneers and legends when we think about pop in the 21st century, the person who really shed the legist, light of the mistreatment was the lead singer from the chicks. She said, you know, I witness how Beyonce and her band members were mistreated backstage and I never want to return to the CMAs. There have been so many interactions where if there's a black person of prominence doing country music, the first response from the fan base is to attack them and harass them

and say that they're not country enough. We even saw that in their reaction to Little Nas X with Old Town Road, right? If we can have a man who immigrated from Australia and then landed in Nashville and became one of the biggest country music stars in the world, then Beyonce can. Because if they had to play the goalpost of who is American and who is country, I would argue that the descendant of African American slaves who were emancipated on Juneteenth in Texas is probably the country's most American thing you can do. and you can't manufacture that in Nashville. It's just ancestral. Do you think that backlash gave Beyonce pause for returning to country music and fully tackling it on a whole record? It actually became the catalyst, surprisingly.

There was an interview for British folk that I believe had taken down. But one of the stage designers said, the reason why we have so many cowboys on the Renaissance store is because after Beyonce experienced that backlash, she went and started doing ancestral research. She started doing genealogial research and started looking at the history of African-American cowboys and cowgirls in Texas. So what they thought was kicking her out

actually motivated her to not only look within herself, but to look into the historical, cultural, social, political, economic history of African-Americans in branching and farming, I think even in her own family history. With country music, kind of being, being at the forefront of culture, do you think Renaissance Act II is going to shift anything in the country music sphere?

There are a lot of perceptions of what Beyonce is going to do in the country music space. And I think folks forget that those perceptions and those notions of what she is going to do is the ways in which we expect black women to save the world each and every day, whether that's in politics, the home, music, the workplace, we look to black women to save the day. Because historically, whether it's the Democratic presidential election or the school board, we're the first to organize and mobilize. So folks are viewing her as a savior in this space. And I think we've never asked, beyond state, what she wants to do in this space. Is she doing country because it's something in her identity? Is it doing country because maybe that's something she's always wanted to do as a little

girl. And also, we allowing her the room to breathe and create an own type of country music, something that we've never seen before, something that isn't white country or conservative country or mainstream country, like can a black woman create the country music she's always wanted to create, pay respect, pay homage, pay her dues, open the door, and then also have this validity and ability to transform into something else. though we will never understand the true, I guess, motivations behind Beyonce doing this, to bring it more personally, what does it mean to you to have a black Southern woman do country like this and be celebrated on the radio, getting airplay, and have this era?

No, I'm someone who was born and raised in the South, and when I was eight, that's when the South took over. Billboard and hip-hop, right? And I remember when I left the South for a graduate school, hearing people make fun of Southerners, hearing people make fun of black Southerners, right? Even in my career as a hip-hop journalist, I've seen people disregard Southern rappers, disregard Southern hip-hop, and I've always asked them a question of, have you ever been to the South? Do you know anyone from the South? So I think, unfortunately, we have yet to address an anti-sensemitter. southern bias in this country. And in the black community, we still regard black southerners as the people who didn't leave so they deserve any type of treatment, whether that's politically,

socially, economically. So thinking of all those layers that I share as a black woman from the South that are shared from Beyonce, that you need to leave the South to become educated, to become a cosmopolitan, to become a respectable black person in this world. You're supposed to leave the South behind. You're supposed to leave the country behind. You're not supposed to to embrace it, right? So for her to come on, this moment in history, this moment in pop culture and say, I am country and you were going to hear my country as speak about rodeos and cowboys and cowgirls. Even when Beyonce says that she is a black girl from the country, it means so much because so many people were taught for generations not to own that and not to claim that.

So I think this is her getting in touch with that 16-year-old on 16 carriages. I think this is her form of like inner child work, inner teenage work, and also opening the doors for representation. If I can be emotional for a second, I've received so many messages from older black woman, black woman who could be my aunties, that could be my mom, talking about how they only listen to this music in their house, how they couldn't share this with their friends, how they were being chastised with. You know, I talked about how I liked country music on Twitter and somebody called me Maga, right? There's that association that if you're black and you like country music, you don't like a part of yourself. And I think this moment is reclaiming everything that we have been taught not to be proud of, whether that's your heritage, your ancestry, or you just simply like country music.

this song is a symbol of so much more. This episode, Switched on Pop, was produced by Nate Sloan, me, Charlie Harding, and our great producer, Raina Cruz. We're edited by Art Chung, engineered by Brandon McFarlane, illustrations by Iris Gottlieb, community management by Abby Barr. Our executive producer is Nishak, Karwa. We're a member of the Vox Media Podcast Network and a production of Vulture, which is part of New York Magazine. If you want to subscribe, you can go to New Yorkmag.com slash pop. Find us on social media at Switch on Pop and tell us what you're hearing in these new Beyonce releases. What do we miss?

Charlie, I hear some phantom voices in the background when we listen to some of the solo sections of Texas Hold'em. I want to know what's going on there. I want someone to listen closely to that and tell me what's going on in the background there. We also have a newsletter, y'all. It's at SwitchOnpop.com, our website or in our show notes. you can sign up for it. And this is where every week we go deeper into some of the most fascinating topics in popular music.

It's a great read, and it doesn't take up a lot of time. We had a competition. We both dropped some musical knowledge here. I'm not sure who was the winner of our competition. Oh, our competition. Yeah, I didn't forget about that. You know, I think your section was a lot of fun, and so I'm going to give you extra 10 points for all the fun.

Do you want to sing a song? Yeah, I want to sing a little bit of Texas Holder. for you. It's a real life boogie and a real life hold down. Don't be a bitch. Come take it to the floor now. Yeah. Oh, boy. Okay, okay. All right. All right. We'll see you again next Tuesday. And until then, thanks for listening. Hey! Say thanks for listening. Thanks for listening.

Attention, Spotify. It has arrived on the new Good Girl Jasmine Absolute of Caroline Herrera. A fragrance intense with character Gourman and addicive. Imagine a jasmine emvolventy, tofu caramelized, and tonka toast. A combination that seduce from the first instant and it's a way. Good Girl Jasmine Absolute, hypnotic, irresistible. Discover it now and let you

and let's turn it involver for her sensia.