Beyoncé unveils “Cowboy Carter,” the second album in her “Renaissance” trilogy, featuring the singles “Texas Hold ’Em” and “16 Carriages.”
For fans, the end of the wait. Beyoncé unveiled, this Friday, March 29, the second album of her Renaissance triptych: the album Cowboy Carter, a resolutely country component, awaited for weeks. The first two singles, Texas Hold 'Em and 16 Carriages, released last February for the Super Bowl, initiated this shift inspired by the artist's native Texas. With success, since the two titles have respectively 33 and 7 million views on YouTube. These two titles rose to the top of the Billboard country songs chart, a first for a black artist.
The album Cowboy Carter has a total of 27 tracks, including collaborations with country music stars: a cover of Dolly Parton's hit Jolene with new lyrics or Willie Nelson on the track Smoke Hour. Other artists appear on this disc, such as Miley Cyrus, Post Malone, Shaboozey and Linda Martell. Also noteworthy on this album is a cover of The Beatles' Blackbird, originally released in 1968 on the White Album, evoking civil rights. Beyoncé also shares a song, Protector, with her second daughter, six-year-old Rumi Carter.
"Mom, can I hear the lullaby?" can be heard in the introduction to the song, in which the singer intones: "I will guide you on this road if you lose your way. Born to be your protector. Even if I know that one day you will shine on your own. I will be your protector.”
The Cowboy Carter album therefore contains surprises, but also numerous references to African-American culture and racial segregation in the United States. For example, Beyoncé shared posters on her social networks entitled Cowboy Carter and the Rodeo Chitlin' Circuit, an allusion to the concert halls where black artists could tour during the era of Jim Crow laws, which imposed racial segregation across the Atlantic. until their repeal in 1964.
