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Beyoncé has made history again as the first black female artist to have a number one country song, Billboard. Announced Tuesday.
Just over a week after its release, “Texas Hold ‘Em” topped Billboard’s Hot Country Songs chart at No. 1 and “16 Carriages” charted at No. 9. R&B icon and hip-hop and Texas native is reclaiming a genre. which, according to scholars, has roots in black musical instruments and traditions, but has historically excluded black artists, especially black women.
The two songs, released on February 11, were announced during a Super Bowl commercial in anticipation of Beyoncé’s release. next album – a sequel to their 2022 album “Renaissance” – which will be released in March. She is also the first woman to top Billboard’s Hot Country Songs and Hot R&B/Hip-Hop charts since the charts were created in 1958, Billboard reported Wednesday.
Beyoncé is not the first black country singer, but her new success on the country charts shines a spotlight on a genre that has historically been predominantly white. and masculine. In recent decades, women of color have set out to forge a path for artists who look like them in the country genre, a genre with strong roots in black musical traditions.
“Black and brown people have always had an interest in country music; they’ve always played it and always enjoyed it,” said Amanda Marie Martinez, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. told NBC News in 2020.
Prominent country instruments, such as the fiddle and banjo, were played primarily by enslaved Africans and were eventually incorporated into music pioneered by white southern artists, according to Martinez, who has written extensively about country and race. However, country radio stations of the early 20th century featured primarily white artists who have come to dominate the country music scene.
As the genre and its audience have diversified in recent decades, artists such as Rissi Palmer and mickey guiton are advocating for greater visibility for black country musicians. Many hope that Beyoncé’s new country album will redefine in the cultural consciousness what it means to be a country artist.
“Texas Hold ‘Em” gives Beyoncé her seventh and exclusive No. 1 spot on a variety of song charts, according to Billboard. (Currently, only Justin Bieber surpasses Beyoncé with eight unique number one songs on the charts.)
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