Video will appear as you scroll through the story
Beyoncé · S9 E2
Black Cowboys
The full history of Black Americans in country music — the erasure and the reclamation
Linda Martell stands on the Grand Ole Opry stage in 1969, the first Black woman to perform there solo. Country music's memory loses her almost immediately.
"YA YA" live from the Cowboy Carter Tour. The track that proves the episode's thesis in four minutes: country, rock, and R&B were never separate genres until the industry made them that way.
YA YA (2024)
"YA YA" samples Nancy Sinatra's "These Boots Are Made for Walkin'" and the Beach Boys' "Good Vibrations," placing Beyonce at the center of American pop traditions rarely associated with Black artists. The production layers country guitar, rock energy, and R&B vocal runs into something that refuses to be filed under any single genre. That refusal is the point. The recording industry spent a century teaching audiences that these sounds belong in separate aisles. "YA YA" puts them all on the same track and dares anyone to say they don't fit.
TAP TO REVEAL: Who was one of the Grand Ole Opry's biggest draws for over a decade, and why does almost nobody know his name?
Ryman Auditorium, Nashville
The "Mother Church of Country Music," home of the Grand Ole Opry from 1943 to 1974. Charley Pride and Linda Martell both stood on this stage, proving Black artists belonged in country music while the industry worked to forget them.
What country music instrument has its origins in West Africa?
DAUGHTER
"DAUGHTER" is the quietest statement on Cowboy Carter: a song about lineage, heritage, and what gets passed down through families. The industry erased Black country musicians from the official record. This song says the tradition survived anyway, passed down until someone loud enough came along to make it public again.
Beyonce proved the history. Next: she covers the Beatles' "Blackbird," and the reason Paul McCartney wrote it makes the whole album feel personal.
0 XP earned this session