Beyoncé fans spent the day running from store to store searching for their first cowboy hat or pair of white cowboy boots. They brought denim jackets with silver fringes, brown and white skirts with cow patterns and silver rhinestones embedded just above the eyelid.
Then on Friday night, they headed downtown to Nashville’s famous honky-tonk strip and bars on Lower Broadway to listen to Beyoncé’s latest album “Cowboy Carter,” a set of not only country music but additionally contemporary pop, funk and more species.
“I’ve never seen so many people who look like me in cowboy hats in my life,” gushed Nia Blair, 24, as she danced in her own pair of latest boots. She added: “One album did it all.”
There was no shortage of celebrations for the superstar’s latest album this week: there have been listening parties Atlanta Down HoustonAND fan day on the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland and a seemingly infinite stream of topical posts from brands AND politicians.
But that is Nashville, where the country music industry’s iron gates and radio stations have cemented its brand as a “Music City” with a history of minimizing women and musicians of color who helped construct its foundations or sought to expand its horizons.
It was also there that some fans and critics sharply criticized Beyoncé’s performance on the Country Music Association Awards with the Chicks in 2016, which was said to be the catalyst for the album’s creation.
This party was different.
“Tonight is really just an announcement that we’re here in Nashville,” said Dede Neahn West, who helped organize the listening party on the roof of Acme Feed & Seed, a renovated farm shop that now boasts 4 floors of events. musical performances and events. “It’s just honoring and celebrating and celebrating our culture.”
Just over per week before the album was scheduled to be released, Ms. West and Aaron Bell, a longtime Nashville producer and musicianhe began talking about organizing an event in the town that may bring Black fans together to celebrate what many consider a triumph of the album’s artistry, an acknowledgment of the extra barriers facing musicians of color and the promise of more to come.
“There will be a Black person here — there’s nothing on Broadway that reflects us,” said Mr. Bell, a DJ who often performs as AB Eastwood and, like others, said he found a more inclusive venue to perform at Acme Feed & Seed. “It was important to do it on Broadway.”
“Nashville, we love you,” he said, but “we don’t have to wait for anyone to say yes.”
The album’s release sent shockwaves through the country music industry. But it also created an exhausting and emotional whirlwind of attention from legions of musicians, producers and artists who had already been working for years in Nashville to create an area for Black musicians within the genre they love, some said in interviews.
“Beyoncé brought us all together just for this night, and we can be grateful for that,” said Tanner Davenport, co-director Black Oprywhich provided a platform for black country and folk artists, including through traveling revuefrom 2021. But he added that the explanation he and others “stay in this area is because of the community that is here.”
There is not any indication that the Nashville conglomerate of record labels and executives will drastically change its approach, especially given its enduring dependence on terrestrial radio. That left open questions on whether financial and institutional opportunities would come to other Black Country artists, despite the fact that the opening songs from “Cowboy Carter” broke country music records.
“The biggest chance we have for change is that she exposed the idea of country music to a huge number of people who now seemed more open to it – and the fact that they weren’t open was not their fault. own,” said Holly G, founder of the Black Opry.
She added: “For now, I think we have an opportunity to build a fan base that can exist and thrive outside of spaces where we haven’t felt welcome.”
And Friday’s listening party, titled “Kinfolk,” was a signal that they might be able to attract those fans.
On Friday night, in addition to bachelorette parties and tourists flocking to the rest of the famous honky-tonk strip and bars owned by stars such as Kid Rock, Jason Aldean and Luke Bryan, hundreds of people brought the roof of the Acme Feed & Seed to its capacity.
The line of fans in fringe, jeans and leather stretched one floor below, while others crowded the roof, posed for photos with friends and heeded calls to buy more records and tickets for other artists. Participants talked about how it was the first country album they had listened to in its entirety, how it led them to start listening to other Black country artists, or the joy they felt being surrounded by other Black country music fans.
“We’ve never felt comfortable even playing music — country music — on Broadway, but it’s nice to be here tonight with people who respect what we do and respect what we look like,” said Brandon Campbell, who performs together with his brother twin. Derek as country duo The Kentucky Gentlemen.
He added that celebrating a Black woman’s country album on Broadway, given a decade of difficult experiences in the city, “is a extremely big deal for us mentally, physically and emotionally.”
A video of a performance at the 2016 Country Music Association Awards played on a loop on TVs behind the bar while bartenders served specialty drinks like The Bey-Hive – a discounted can of the cocktail and Texas Hold’ Em – a sour whiskey made with whiskey from a Black-owned distillery in Nashville.
“It’s so much fun and seeing the fact that people actually want to dress up and go out?” said MaKayla Stovall, 25. “It makes me proud to be Black and from the South.”
Brandon Robinson, 27, said: “I hate that she did not have time last time, so I’m glad we are able to have time for her.”
When it came time to start playing the album, there was a burst of applause, phones and studded cowboy hats flying high into the night sky to the beat of the music.
And when the album’s two Black women, Brittney Spencer and Reyna Roberts, appeared on stage together, the crowd roared. A woman in a cowboy hat and long white coat wiped away tears as the two women sang along to their own harmonies on the album cover of the Beatles song “Blackbird.”
“This is amazing,” Ms. Spencer told the crowd before the next song started playing. “I love Black Nashville.”
