Video will appear as you scroll through the story
Beyoncé · S9 E1
TEXAS HOLD 'EM
The country single that broke country radio — and the stations that refused to play it
February 11, 2024. A Verizon Super Bowl ad plays to 123 million viewers, and it ends with two words nobody expected from Beyonce: "act ii."
"TEXAS HOLD 'EM" official music video. Shot on a ranch with line dancing, rodeo imagery, and a visual language that treats country music as something Beyonce has always owned rather than borrowed.
TEXAS HOLD 'EM (2024)
Built on classic country bones: verse-chorus-verse, banjo, steel guitar, fiddle underneath. But the groove swings in a way Nashville's standard session playbook wouldn't produce. The rhythm section pushes against the country structure, bending it toward something funkier without ever breaking it. The chorus is the key. Two traditions argue with each other: country melody and R&B phrasing, neither one winning. That tension is the entire thesis of the album in a single song.
TAP TO REVEAL: What happened at the 2016 CMA Awards that planted the seed for Cowboy Carter?
Before "TEXAS HOLD 'EM," how many Black women had reached number one on Billboard's Hot Country Songs chart in its 66-year history?
16 CARRIAGES
Released the same night as "TEXAS HOLD 'EM" but carrying a completely different weight. "16 CARRIAGES" is the ballad to its sibling's anthem: a meditation on sacrifice, fame, and the years Beyonce spent building her career from childhood. Where "TEXAS HOLD 'EM" is the statement of arrival, this is the cost of getting there.
TEXAS HOLD 'EM by the Numbers
The single proved Beyonce could top the country charts. Next: the history she was reclaiming, because Black Americans didn't just contribute to country music. They invented it.
0 XP earned this session