Sometimes even a cowboy isn't country enough for the gatekeepers. Beyoncé went the Western route with her 2024 album "Cowboy Carter," yet the CMAs didn't see fit to toss her a single nomination. The decision has left Nashville uncertain ever since.
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00:00Sometimes, even a cowboy isn't country enough for the gatekeepers. Beyoncé went the Western
00:04route with her 2024 album, Cowboy Carter, yet the CMAs didn't see fit to toss her a
00:09single nomination. The decision has left Nashville uncertain ever since.
00:14It's tough to deny just how successful country music has been so far in 2024. Morgan Walling
00:18crossed over to scale the Billboard pop chart. Meanwhile, Lainey Wilson, Chris Stapleton,
00:23Jelly Roll, and Luke Combs all made inroads to superstardom. Country is having a moment,
00:27and musicians from other genres got in on the fun. Among them, rapper-singer Post Malone
00:32and, of course, Beyoncé. Originally from Houston —
00:34It's town!
00:41— Beyoncé has mostly resided in the R&B and pop worlds, dating back to her time with
00:44Destiny's Child in the 1990s. But in late March 2024, she embraced her Texas roots and
00:50released her first country album. Cowboy Carter debuted at number one on two Billboard charts
00:55and the Country Albums chart. One of the album's two lead singles, Texas Hold'em, similarly
01:00scaled the Hot 100 in February.
01:02Beyoncé's country effort was successful by any metric, but it launched a debate about
01:06what is and isn't country. That plus-or-fresh dive into the genre may have been a detriment
01:11during awards season. The Country Music Association Awards nominations were announced in September,
01:16and Beyoncé was shut out completely. Fans accused the CMAs of snubbing her, purposely
01:21ignoring the superstar's work.
01:23That's what makes this so shocking, because Beyoncé did put a huge spotlight on country
01:28artists, both past and present.
01:30The whole situation left country's top stars pretty divided, to say the least. Take, for
01:35example, Luke Bryan, who co-hosted the 2024 CMAs alongside Peyton Manning and Lainey Wilson.
01:41In an October 2 interview on SiriusXM's Andy Cohen Live, he tried to be diplomatic about
01:46things but also made it clear he believes Beyoncé is an outsider. He said,
01:50Nobody's mad about it, but where things get a little tricky, if you're gonna make country
01:54albums, come into our world and be country with us a little bit.
01:57Beyoncé covered Dolly Parton's mega-hit Jolene on her album, and Dolly also is a guest on
02:01the track Dolly P, so Dolly is definitely on the side of Cowboy Carter. The country
02:06legend told Variety that Beyoncé has the background to be country, given her roots
02:10in Texas and Louisiana, but that politics probably got in the way. She said,
02:14I guess probably the country music field. They probably thought, well, we can't really
02:18leave out some of the ones that spent their whole life doing that.
02:22Country star Carly Pearce seemed to try to fashion an argument that Beyoncé wasn't trying
02:25for a CMA award, telling E! News at the 2024 People's Choice Country Awards,
02:30Beyoncé is Beyoncé. I think she has publicly said she did not make a country album. She
02:34was making an album, and yes, there's a lot of Western, a lot of country elements, because
02:38I think she's grounded in her roots in Texas.
02:40Notably, Beyoncé was nominated 12 times at the People's Choice Country Awards, although
02:45she walked away with no wins.
02:47Nikki Guyton, one of the few Black artists working in contemporary country, said on The
02:50View that she understood the CMA's decision, but also lamented the lack of nominations
02:54as a failure. She noted that it could have represented a cultural breakthrough.
02:59There was such a huge opportunity in that moment to give a Black woman that platform
03:05that she so deserves.
03:07Ultimately, Guyton chalked up the snub to so many things that you just can't always
03:11control.
03:12The fervor over Beyoncé's shutout died down for a bit, but it fired back up on November
03:1620th, the day of the CMA awards ceremony. That morning, Billy Ray Cyrus posted his thoughts
03:21about the whole situation to Instagram, writing,
03:23I was surprised to see Beyoncé wasn't nominated. Her album was brilliant, her single ruled,
03:28but she knows that. She doesn't need a trophy from the CMA or permission or approval from
03:33any of their judges.