Beyoncé is the first black woman with a number one country song

After conquering the world with RenaissanceBeyoncé continues to make history with Act II.

Billboard announced Tuesday that the Grammy winner reached No. 1 on the Hot Country Songs chart with her new song “Texas Hold ‘Em.” Rolling Stone reports that this achievement makes her the first black woman to top that chart since its creation in 1958. The song It is also number 2 on the Hot 100 behind Jack Harlow’s “Lovin on Me.”

Beyoncé announced her next album on February 11 after teasing new music during a Super Bowl commercial for Verizon. Shortly after the ad premiered, “Texas Hold ‘Em” and “16 Carriages” hit streaming services to immediate success. The first song had 19.2 million official streams, while the second had 10.3 million streams, placing it at number 9 on the country chart.

After fan outcry, Columbia Nashville Announced which would officially promote “Texas Hold ‘Em” on country radio stations on February 14. Although it wasn’t immediately clear if any of the songs would officially make their way to country radio, station managers told EW that they were playing “Texas Hold ‘Em.” anyway, and that the response had been overwhelmingly positive. “I added the song because it’s a great song and I’m excited because it sounds incredibly good on the radio.” Country 93QTravis Moon told EW. “And if there are some of their fans who listen to the song on my radio station and like other songs, that’s really good for my station.”

Beyoncé had previously adopted country elements for the song “Daddy Lessons” in 2016. Lemonadebut the instrumentation of his new singles and his recent adoption of the cowboy visual aesthetic leads fans to believe that Act II will be the singer’s first full-fledged country album.

Many black women have been making waves in country music for decades, as noted by former american idol mentor Bobby Bones, the genre’s origins are partially indebted to African music. “Country music is based on African music brought on slave ships. And from Europe. With fiddle and banjo,” Bones wrote previously in social media. “So all these guys shouting ‘that’s not a country’…unless you’re European or African, you’re not really a ‘country.'”

The success of Beyoncé’s songs is especially significant in the wake of repeated criticism of the country music industry’s treatment of black artists. In 2019, Billboard removed Lil Nas X’s “Old Town Road” from the Hot Country charts, arguing that the song did not have enough country elements to be included on the charts. Prior to that, Beyoncé herself sparked controversy after performing “Daddy Lessons” at the 50th Country Music Awards, as some audiences did not like the inclusion of a non-country artist in the ceremony, while others called such opinions racist. .

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