According to a report from Yahoo News, Beyoncé has yet again made history with her new song, "Texas Hold ‘Em," which recently hit No. 1 on the Hot Country Songs chart, according to a recent announcement by Billboard. This achievement marks the first time a Black woman has topped the chart since its inception in 1958, as reported by Rolling Stone. The song has also secured the No. 2 spot on the Hot 100, following Jack Harlow’s "Lovin on Me."
The announcement of Beyoncé's next album came on February 11th after she teased new music during a Super Bowl commercial for Verizon. Shortly after the ad premiered, "Texas Hold ‘Em" and "16 Carriages" were released, and both songs immediately gained immense popularity. "Texas Hold ‘Em" had 19.2 million official streams, while "16 Carriages" had 10.3 million streams, securing it the ninth place on the country music chart.
As a result of fan outcry, Columbia Nashville announced that it would officially promote “Texas Hold ‘Em” to country radio stations on February 14th.
Though it wasn’t immediately clear whether either song would officially hit country radio, station managers told Entertainment Weekly that they were playing “Texas Hold ‘Em” anyway and that the response had been overwhelmingly positive.
“I added the song because it's a great song, and I'm excited because it just sounds so freaking good on the radio,” 93Q Country’s Travis Moon told EW. “And if there are some of her fans who listen to the song on my radio station that like some other songs, that's actually good for my station.”
Beyoncé previously utilized country components for the song “Daddy Lessons” on 2016’s Lemonade, but the instrumentation of her new singles and her recent adoption of cowboy visual aesthetics steers fans to assume that Act II will be the singer’s first full-blown country album.
Black women have contributed greatly to country music for decades — as mentioned by former American Idol mentor Bobby Bones, the genre’s origins owe credit to African music.
“Country music is based on the music from Africa brought over on the slave ships. And from Europe. With the fiddle and banjo," Bones previously wrote on social media. "So all these dudes yelling ‘that ain’t country’… unless you’re European or African, you ain’t really ‘country.’”
Beyoncé's music has gained significant recognition, especially considering the repeated criticism faced by the country music industry for the treatment of Black artists. The industry's bias was evident when Billboard removed Lil Nas X's "Old Town Road" from the Hot Country Charts in 2019, citing insufficient country elements in the song. Even Beyoncé faced criticism after performing "Daddy Lessons" at the 50th Country Music Awards, with some viewers objecting to the inclusion of a non-country artist in the event, while others condemned such objections as racist.
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