Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter, explained

Coverage and analysis of the global superstar’s eighth studio album.

Giddy up! Cowboy Carter, Beyoncé’s eighth studio album and long-awaited sequel to Renaissance, dropped on March 29. Notable collaborators include musicians like Linda Martell, Dolly Parton, Willie Nelson, Miley Cyrus, Post Malone, and many others.

Earlier this year, Beyoncé made history as the first Black woman to top Billboard’s Hot Country Songs chart with “Texas Hold ‘Em,” the album’s lead single.

As senior correspondent Alex Abad-Santos writes, “Not unlike how Renaissance highlighted the history of people of color helping to create and perpetuate house music, Cowboy Carter offers up the same opportunity for mainstream culture to acknowledge just how much country music owes its sound and history to Black artists.”

So, from country music’s Black roots to how the CMAs might have inspired the album, read on to understand more of Beyoncé and Cowboy Carter’s cultural significance and why the conversations about who defines a genre matter.