Pop and culture journalist Taylor Crumpton wrote a column for Time magazine, titled: “Beyoncé Has Always Been Country.”
In her column, Crumpton, who is Black, makes the argument that Beyonce was always country because white people stole country music from her Black ancestors.
“The greatest lie country music ever told was convincing the world that it is white,” Crumpton writes.
“The truth is that country music has never been white. Country music is Black. Country music is Mexican. Country music is Indigenous.”
Crumpton claims artists like Beyonce are discriminated against by the country music industry.
“Unspoken rules enforce the industry’s self-appointed laws of segregation on the basis of race and gender.”
A country music radio station in Oklahoma was shamed into playing Beyonce’s single “Hold ‘Em Texas.”
KYKC’s programmer initially said Beyonce wasn’t country music.
Crumpton writes that Beyonce returned to country music after her “mistreatment at the 2016 Country Music Awards” because she “was raised in a household where young girls were told to tell the truth and shame the devil.”
Crumpton says Beyonce’s Louis Vuitton couture cowgirl outfit is not virtue signaling or a “white flag to indicate surrender.”
She said Beyonce’s designer western wear “is her trumpet that must be blown, for the walls of Nashville’s Music Row to fall down, so the rightful heirs of country music may come in.”
In other words, Beyonce is here to reclaim country music for her ancestors and for future generations of Black Country music singers to come.
