This Christmas, the City of Houston celebrated the Beyoncé Bowl. Oh, and there was a football game or something going on too. Beyoncé has been teasing for weeks about a halftime holiday performance, while Netflix geared up their servers for a moment that required nothing less than perfection because, as we all know, The Queen has no notes. The 11-time Grammy-nominated album “Cowboy Carter” bent genres and catapulted Black country music artists to new heights that allowed them to receive the spotlight and the credit they finally deserved, while showcasing the legacies of Black cowboys and Black rodeo queens through Beyoncé’s storytelling.
The Texans were trailing the Baltimore Ravens 17-2 at halftime, but win or lose, the City of Houston was leaving that game with something. With 13 minutes at NRG Stadium, in the heart of the Downtown Houston, Mrs. Carter made sure she ate and everyone in her house was full. The performance started with her still tippin on the toes of self-proclaimed country music colonizers as she entered the stadium on a white horse, laced in a white fur cowboy jacket (known as a woolie), and escorted by Black rodeo royalty. Standing in the background was a small choir dressed in what seemed to be garments very similar to the Adimu, which is worn during the Eyo Festival, an African (Nigerian) tradition in the Yoruba culture that celebrates the ushering in of new royalty by spiritually cleansing the streets and clearing the energy paths for fresh transitions.
As she rounded the corner of the stadium tunnel while belting out Cowboy Carter’s debut single “16 Carriages”, the bittersweet southern soundtrack to her childhood, she strolled past 16 decked-out, low-riding Cadillacs, also known in Houston as “slabs”, and was then welcomed into her next set by a community of southern kings and queens standing proudly on top of their stallions, similar to the Prairie View Trail Riders. It was there where she was met by Tanner Adell, Tiera Kennedy, Reyna Roberts, and Brittany Spencer, the four young Black female country artists whom she collaborated with for her remake of The Beatles’ controversial hit “Blackbird”. Over the years, the song has been known to be tied directly to the civil rights movement, as detailed in the book “Blackbird: How Black Musicians Sang the Beatles into Being—and Sang Back to Them Ever After”. Lead Singer of The Beatles Paul McCartney has also done several interviews where he explains the song being inspired by a Black woman, and he (along with Dolly Parton) came out in full support of Beyoncé and her current remake of their iconic songs.
Then, if you listen closely, there’s a familiar sound that could have been the brief intro to her hit song “Freedom” w/ Kendrick Lamar, which was recently used for the Kamala Harris Presidential Campaign, but it turned out to actually be the introduction to “Yaya” the revolutionary Tina Turner-inspired hit from “Cowboy Carter,” and it was at this point in the show that we were about to “F*%K around and find out” why she, as an artist in its purest form, singlehandedly keeps the concept of live performances and visuals relevant.
She might be Mrs. Carter, but she ISthe blueprint.
“Family lived and died in America,
Good ole, USA
A whole lotta red in that white and blue,
History can’t be erased”
– Yaya (Cowboy Carter)
Greek philosopher Dinos Christianopoulos once wrote, “They tried to bury us, but they didn’t know we were seeds.” The untold stories of the Black cowboy have been buried deep in southern and western soil and watered with the tears of its sons and daughters, while their influence remained invisible. Black cattle laborers were often referred to as “cowboys” in the past; while white cattle workers were known as “cowhands.” In the American South, the word “boy” was and is frequently used as a racial slur. After the term “cowboy” was whitewashed, black cowhands, and the legacies they left behind, were later left out of the history books. It’s a story that no matter how complicated, reminds us that this house is still just as much ours as it is theirs.
She then appropriately transitions into “My House” where she reaches into her Homecoming bag and brings out 200 members of the “Ocean of Soul”, Texas Southern University’s marching band as well as several Houston Texans cheerleaders. Her art is not only intentional, but interactive, and she always has a way of getting the fans involved, even on mute, as you can see stadium fans spelling out the song’s title in the background.
“Them big ideas are buried here..”
– American Requiem (Cowboy Carter)
She then takes us through a choreography-heavy smash-up of “Spaghetti/Riverdance/Sweet Honey Buckin”, bringing out chart-topping Black country artist Shaboozey, and then a smooth walk on a late Summer evening with Post Malone, as they dance around a denim covered pick-up truck while performing “Levi’s’ Jeans”. While performing her rendition of “Jolene”, the bad Creole banjee bitch from Louisianne then hops in one of the 16 Cadillacs and leads a parade full of cars escorting southern legends such as the Houston Texans Team Owner Cal McNair and his wife Hannah, Mexican Cowgirl Melanie Rivera, bull-riding legend Myrtis Dightman Jr. (also known as the “Jackie Robinson of Rodeo), Miss Rodeo Texas Princess 2004 and Miss Rodeo Texas 2015 Nikki Woodward, as well as Ja’Dayia Kursh the first Black Rodeo Queen of Arkansas. Kursh took to social media recently, discussing many of the hardships she had to face as a Black woman in the Country and Rodeo scene, while also expressing endless gratitude for Beyoncé using her influence to amplify the underground work of artists who have spent years trying to break ceilings.
Because she’s a popstar, she’s received a lot of negative feedback for not being “country” enough, with many people calling “Cowboy Carter” a phase, and a gimmick. But you don’t have to be president of the beehive to know that her roots run deep from the bayous of Louisiana to the bluebonnet fields of Texas. Beyoncé, as well as her sister Solange, grew up going to the Houston Rodeo and attending Houston Rodeo Week festivities, which are huge events in the Black Houstonian community, a city drenched in the culture of country. She has also donated at least $500,000 to the Bill Picket Rodeo circuit in August of this year to promote Black cowboys through the recently created Black Equestrians Program. “Cowboy Carter” in itself is a love letter to the dysfunctional relationship between Black Americans and the USA. At its core, it represents the intersectionality of the conflict between acceptance and criticism. Because being Black in America often means playing a pivotal role in the forward movement of a society that you love, but one that does everything in its power to keep pushing you back.
With the Ocean of Soul at her side almost the entire show, she escorts us into the grand finale to perform the first “Cowboy Carter” single, “Texas Hold ‘Em”. It’s the kind of song that’s so Texas, so Houston, so Black, and so country, you don’t know if you don’t know if you wanna two-step, twerk, or Zydeco, so it only makes sense for it to be the closing performance of the setlist. This was the moment we first see Blue Ivy step to the forefront for the perfect do-si-do with her mom, but it wasn’t until watching it back (several times, lol) that you could see she was actually dancing in the back the entire show. The way that we were introduced to Blue Ivy on stage and continue to see her grow in that same space, tugs at the nostalgia of Black nepotism. The way Beyoncé pours into her legacy and allows her oldest daughter to grow into herself while also prioritizing protecting her from the adultification of the outside world, speaks to the kind of artist and mother that she really is.
With white chariots decked in white flowers to show respect to former 18th-century Juneteenth celebrations, the entire 12 minutes of the halftime show was a trip through pain, perseverance, and the awakening of a new, and well earned, patriotism. Her powerful performance is praised as one of her most artistically defining moments and is the ideal fusion of activism and artistry. She made sure that the stories of this thriving community were given the attention they deserved by bringing light to Black cowboy and rodeo culture. It reiterated the theme behind Cowboy Carter, highlighting our rich but rural royalty, uplifting the legacy and the untold stories of the Black cowboy, and using her art to show the world that being Black and Country is much more than an aesthetic.
