As Beyoncé embarks on her Cowboy Carter world tour, her embrace of country music is sparking renewed conversations about the genre’s Black roots and the pioneers who have often been left out of its history. Since Beyoncé previewed Cowboy Carter during her Super Bowl commercial and released the album in March 2024-the second act of her Renaissance trilogy-the cultural response has been electric. The Grammy-winning album spotlights the long-erased contributions of Black musicians to country music and has sparked renewed curiosity in that legacy.
“It’s awakened such a discussion,” says Francesca Royster, an English professor at DePaul University and author of the 2022 book Black Country Music. “Students, friends, old friends from college have been calling, wanting to talk about this topic that, for a long time, has felt like a closet obsession.”
While many contemporary music listeners’ first experience with Black country music came with Lil’ Nas X’s 2018 “country-trap” novelty hit “Old Town Road,” Black folks have been writing, performing, and recording country music since it first became popular in the 1920s. In fact, country music wouldn’t exist as it does today without the contributions and innovations of Black musicians.
“One of the biggest lies this nation has ever told is that Black people are not country,” wrote culture critic Taylor Crumpton in the days following Beyoncé’s announcement. “Black people have always lived in the country. It is where we prayed. It is where we sang. It is where we worshiped.”
As more young and emerging Black country artists receive critical attention and accolades, there’s hope that this represents a step toward a more inclusive representation of country music-rather than just a passing trend.
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How Black Artists Shaped Country Music
The history of Black people in country music is deeply woven into the fabric of the genre, though their contributions have often been overlooked. Country music emerged from a mix of musical traditions, including African American blues, spirituals, and folk songs. One of the most significant contributions from Black musicians was the banjo, an instrument with West African origins that was brought to the United States by enslaved Africans.
During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Black musicians played a crucial role in developing the sounds that influenced country music. Many worked as traveling performers or sharedcroppers who played music in their free time. The blues, a genre created by African Americans, was especially influential in shaping early country music. Despite their influence, Black artists were largely excluded from the country music industry as it became commercialized in the 1920s and 1930s.
The rise of radio and record labels saw music being segregated into categories such as “hillbilly music” for white audiences and “race records” for Black audiences. Racially integrated recording sessions were common in “hillbilly” records of the time, and many white stars had Black mentors, collaborators, and influencers. As the music industry increasingly sought to market country music along color lines, studios and producers worked to hide the fact that recording sessions were integrated, using white stand-ins in promotional images and advertisements, and pigeonholing Black recording artists into “race records”.
Eventually, the pioneering Black musicians of country music were largely forgotten by the public. Still, Black artists continued to contribute to the genre. From national stars like Charley Pride to local favorite (and frequent Jazz Fest performer) Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown, Black musicians proved much more than a footnote in the story of country music.
One of the earliest recorded Black country musicians was DeFord Bailey, a harmonica virtuoso who became a star of the Grand Ole Opry in the late 1920s. He was the first African American performer to appear on the Opry and was a beloved figure for his energetic performances.
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Throughout the mid-20th century, Black musicians continued to influence country music, though they remained in the shadows of their white counterparts. Artists like Ray Charles blended country with soul and R&B, notably with his 1962 album Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music, which challenged racial divisions in the industry.
The 1960s and 1970s saw more Black artists exploring country music, including Charley Pride, who became one of the genre’s most successful Black musicians. Pride, a former baseball player turned singer, broke through racial barriers with his smooth voice and traditional country sound. Over his career, he amassed multiple No.
In the 1980s and 1990s, Black artists like Cleve Francis and Stoney Edwards continued to push for representation in country music, though the industry remained predominantly white. Despite the challenges, Black country musicians remained dedicated to their craft, often working behind the scenes as songwriters and instrumentalists.
The 21st century has seen a resurgence of Black artists reclaiming their place in country music. Artists like Darius Rucker, formerly of Hootie & the Blowfish, found great success in country music, becoming a multi-platinum artist with numerous chart-topping hits.
With social media and streaming services, Black country artists have more opportunities than ever to share their music with the world. Independent artists like Rhiannon Giddens, Yola, and Allison Russell have gained recognition for blending country, folk, and Americana while highlighting the overlooked contributions of Black musicians.
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Today, the conversation around Black representation in country music continues to grow. Organizations and initiatives, such as the Black Opry, work to support and uplift Black country artists, ensuring that their voices are heard. While there is still work to be done in achieving full inclusivity, the contributions of Black musicians to country music are undeniable.
Rhiannon Giddens, a performing historian whose work highlights Black people's pivotal role in making country music. Photograph by Karen Cox, The New York Times/Redux
Key Figures in Black Country Music History
Several African American artists have achieved significant milestones in country music, breaking barriers and paving the way for future generations.
DeFord Bailey
DeFord Bailey was the first performer on the Grand Ole Opry and helped turn Nashville into a country music mecca. Although the Grand Ole Opry aired for the first time as the WSM Barn Dance two years prior, the radio show was truly born on December 10, 1927, when announcer George D. Hay first referred to the program by its now iconic title. The first performer to take the stage that night was one of country’s earliest stars: DeFord Bailey.
Born in December 1899, Bailey overcame a bout with polio at age 3 to become a talented musician. Hay dubbed him the “Harmonica Wizard” for his skill with the instrument. He also played guitar and did yo-yo tricks, according to the Country Music Hall of Fame. However, DeFord quit music in 1941 following a disagreement over song licensing. He died at age 82 in July 1982.
Linda Martell
Linda Martell is considered the first commercially successful Black female country artist. Born Thelma Bynem in 1941 in Leesville, South Carolina, she began singing as a child at her Baptist church. She then formed an R&B group called The Anglos with her sister and cousin when she was a teenager.
After a DJ suggested her now-famous stage name, Martell released the 1969 single “Color Him Father,” which peaked at No. 22 on the Hot Country Singles chart. No other Black female artist charted that high until Beyoncé’s “Texas Hold ‘Em” reached No. 1 in 2024. Also in 1969, Martell became the first Black female solo artist to play the Grand Ole Opry.
Martell remains a huge influence in modern country. In 2021, she received the CMT Equal Play Award, which recognizes trailblazing artists in the genre.
Charley Pride
Charley Pride, widely considered the genre’s first Black superstar, was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2000. He was the first Black country singer to receive the honor and is still one of only three along with DeFord Bailey and Ray Charles.
Born in March 1934, Pride idolized Jackie Robinson and attempted a professional baseball career in the Negro American League before transitioning to music. It was the right call-he was named the CMA Entertainer of the Year in 1971 and went on to have 29 No. 1 country hits before his 2020 death at age 86.
Darius Rucker
The longtime frontman of Hootie & the Blowfish, Darius Rucker embarked on a country solo career in the late 2000s. The 58-year-old has achieved massive success since, particularly with “Wagon Wheel” from 2013.
Rucker’s version of the song, originally released in 2004 by Old Crow Medicine Show, became Diamond-certified in October 2022 after selling and streaming 10 million units. “Wagon Wheel” was only the fourth country song ever to achieve that status, according to Music Row magazine.
Tracy Chapman
Tracy Chapman’s career-defining song “Fast Car” peaked at No. 6 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1988 and earned the singer a Grammy for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance. But thanks to Luke Combs’ omnipresent 2023 cover, the 60-year-old and her song made history again more than 30 years later.
Combs’ version of the track was named Song of the Year at the CMA Awards in November 2023, making Chapman the first Black songwriter to win in the category. The two performed a surprise duet of “Fast Car” at the 2024 Grammys, where Combs was nominated for Best Country Solo Performance.
Beyoncé
Beyoncé showed she is a true Renaissance artist with her 2024 release Cowboy Carter and its biggest single. “Texas Hold ‘Em.” The track reached No. 1 on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart that February, making the Texas native the first Black woman artist to achieve the feat. Beyoncé is also one of five musicians ever to have chart-toppers on the Hot Country Songs and Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs lists. She joins Justin Bieber, Morgan Wallen, Billy Ray Cyrus, and Ray Charles.
The Banjo's African Roots
“Texas Hold ‘Em,” one of the lead singles from Cowboy Carter, begins with a syncopated banjo lick played by Black multi-instrumentalist Rhiannon Giddens. It is an appropriate intro, as no other instrument more clearly shows the influence Black Americans have had on the genre quite like the banjo. The banjo’s roots are firmly African, with similar lute-like instruments having existed all over western Africa for centuries before enslaved Africans brought them to the Caribbean and the American South as early as the 17th century.
By the 19th century, the banjo was well established in American music. Despite widespread innovation by African Americans throughout the 19th century, as well as widespread use by white Americans, the difficulty in notating banjo techniques has meant that musicians and historians have had little to go on when trying to reconstruct the way the banjo was played in the early 19th century.
White Creole composer Louis Morreau Gottschalk bypassed the limitations of notating banjo music with The Banjo: Grotesque Fantasie, an American Sketch, a piece for the piano that premiered in New Orleans in 1855. This virtuosic piece, like many of his works, incorporates elements of Black music that Gottschalk heard growing up near New Orleans’s Congo Square.
The Banjo Project: A musical exploration of the banjo’s African roots and its journey through American history.
Black Contributions to Early American Folk Music
Black contributions to early American folk music extend far beyond the banjo. African Americans have been playing the violin, better known in folk contexts as the fiddle, since the colonial era. Enslaved Africans adopted fiddles in the English colonies by at least the 1690s, and over time they developed unique styles while also mastering those of their European enslavers. Enslaved people were often responsible for providing musical entertainment to white colonists.
In the early American period, New Orleans emerged as a center for training enslaved Africans in the art of European dance music. Enslaved people were sent from as far as Arkansas to learn to play the pieces their enslavers wished to hear. The city’s close connections with the Caribbean brought already creolized blends of European and African music, as well as the quadrilles and other set dances that accompanied them.
In addition to becoming leading practitioners of European dance music, Black fiddlers of the 18th and 19th centuries were also musical innovators, incorporating African melodies and musical traditions into their playing. Black musicians in the Upper South introduced new ways to use the bow that incorporated African rhythmic traditions and that eventually became a defining feature of Appalachian-style folk playing for both white and Black musicians.
Black musicians also changed how folk music was arranged and performed. As early as 1774, enslaved musicians had combined the fiddle and banjo into a single ensemble. This combination spread throughout the Americas, including the streets and docks of New Orleans. The combo eventually became the foundation for minstrel show bands, and, later, for bluegrass and folk bands.
This illustration from Harper’s Weekly, 1872, shows the banjo-fiddle combo which by then had become standard.
Many of the tunes Black musicians created were appropriated by white musicians during the era of blackface minstrelsy, during the mid- to late 19th century. These songs became popular forms of sheet music, typically published as “Negro jigs” or “Ethiopian melodies.” Whether performed onstage in a racist caricature by white performers in blackface, or in their written form, they were undoubtedly watered-down from their source material.
These folk forms set the stage for the recording of the earliest country songs in the 1920s and ’30s. Called “hillbilly” records, this music, released by white performers, was marketed to rural white southerners. (“Race records,” marketed to African Americans, featured Black musicians and genres like blues, jazz, and gospel.)
The Carter Family, one of the most influential acts in the history of country music, was heavily influenced by Black musician Lesley Riddle. A shotgun accident in his youth claimed two of Riddle’s fingers, leading him to develop a unique style of picking the guitar. Riddle’s influence on Maybelle Carter, to whom he gave guitar lessons, led to her development of the distinctive Carter “scratch” style of playing. Riddle also accompanied Maybelle’s father, A. P. Carter, when he went searching for new songs to record. Riddle helped him gain access to Black spaces such as churches to learn songs that may have never become part of the white country music tradition otherwise.
Contemporary Black Country Artists
Even today, most media attention continues to fall on a handful of megastars-Kane Brown, Mickey Guyton, and Darius Rucker-but today’s field of Black country music is manifold. While emerging artists like Dalton Dover, Michael Warren, Chauncey Jones, Rodell Duff, and Aaron Vance skew toward a more traditional and acoustic country sound, other singers such as Breland, Willie Jones, RVSHVD, and Tanner Adell are melding trap and R&B elements with country-a musical alchemy that can be heard on Beyoncé’s “Texas Hold ‘Em.”
Twenty-seven-year-old singer and songwriter Reyna Roberts-who borrows equally from country, rock, and pop-attributes her distinctive sound to the broad scope of music she’d been exposed to as a child. “I grew up listening to country, trap, hip hop, classical music, pop, everything,” she says. “But, as a songwriter, I realized that a lot of the songs I was writing were country songs.” Roberts says she’s seen a dramatic increase in listeners and social media followers following Beyoncé’s Super Bowl announcement, gaining close to 400,000 new followers.
Other Black female country and roots artists, like Adell, who released the trap-country “Buckle Bunny” in the summer of 2023, and Linda Martell, the first black female solo artist to play the Grand Ole Opry, have also seen sharp increases in streams and downloads since 2023.
Black Opry’s Holly G. “As a country music fan, I did not feel safe in country music spaces,” says Black Opry founder Holly G.
Recently, Billboard’s Hot Country Songs chart has been topped by an artist that has come as a surprise to some people: Beyoncé. Released in March 2024, Queen Bey’s Cowboy Carter is a country-inspired album, influenced by the country and zydeco music she heard growing up in Houston and attending rodeos with her grandfather. Like her first country song, “Daddy Lessons,” off 2016’s Lemonade, Cowboy Carter has stirred up conversation about Black artists’ place in the predominantly white world of contemporary country music-and their role in the genre’s history.
The Black Opry is an organization dedicated to supporting and uplifting Black country artists.
