- Beyonce has released her highly anticipated country album.

- It's called "Cowboy Carter."

- It's a genre that's been kind of taken from Black people.

♪ This ain't Texas ♪ ♪ Ain't no hold 'em ♪ - Beyonce's country album has been all the buzz, and some say that country music's foundation comes from Black music roots.

But is this true?

Racial barriers, musical copyright battles, and cultural forces have shaped the conversations about who belongs at the forefront of this genre.

Beyonce's album has ignited a relevant cultural conversation around the racial barriers to entry into a genre that has been heavily influenced by artists of color.

It's time that listeners know the history behind this genre, and that credit is given where it's due.

(gentle country style music) Country music has its roots in so many different communities, pulling influences from African American folk music and rhythms, Hawaiian steel guitar, Mexican noncheta music, and many more.

The story of how Black culture has influenced country music begins with the banjo.

- A twang is required, a twang is necessary.

- [Narrator] The banjo is one of country music's first instruments.

While we often associate the banjo with rural white south, its origins are actually much older and more diverse.

(banjo strings twanging) - I love the banjo.

We all know that the banjo was created in Africa, right?

- [Narrator] This instrument began its journey as a gourd instrument brought to America by West Africans through the transatlantic slave trade.

It then evolved in the Caribbean into the banjo that we recognize today.

- The sound of the banjo was essential to Black community life, and became essential to the evolution of what we know today as bluegrass music and old time music, and that evolved into country music.

- Originally, the banjo would've been played with what are called gut strings.

Musicians would play them with their fingers often in a claw hammer style.

This very rhythmic way of playing the banjo.

When we think of the really twangy style of banjo in country music today, that's a more modern style of playing.

It's very significant that when Beyonce puts out her country album, "Cowboy Carter", the very first sounds that we hear off the first single are the sounds of the banjo.

(banjo strings twanging) And not just any banjo, we're hearing the gut string banjo played by Rhiannon Giddens.

♪ Georgia Buck is dead, the last word he said ♪ - The melodies of many early country hits were also lifted from other Black music genres.

Blues, Black folk music, gospel, and more, and some of the earliest country icons were taught by and drew inspiration from Black musicians and songs.

The Carter Family, often hailed as the first family of country music, really shaped their unique sound with the help of Lesley Riddle, a Black blues and gospel guitarist.

He accompanied AP Carter on trips through rural Virginia in search of new song repertory.

He taught the Carter's many songs, including "Lonesome For You."

♪ Now I know what it means to be lonesome ♪ - Country music can't be country music without Black influences.

Without the Black influences, you have folk music.

- If country music has always been this multiethnic melting pot, why has it been perceived as a white genre for so long?

Country music was heavily shaped and influenced by cowboys.

20 to 30% of cowboys were Black and brown.

- Appalachia has always been multiracial, multicultural.

I mean, it was the descendants of enslaved Africans.

It was indigenous folk who's always been on the land.

- Despite country music's diverse roots, the genre and communities it represents are often portrayed as white.

- With, you know, the invention of radio and radio becoming an industry and something you can market and have consumers, that's when you start to see the removal of Black influence, but also indigenous influence, Mexican influence.

- Another reason country music came to be perceived as a white genre, the Great Migration.

As emancipated African Americans made their way to the northern coast, they started to cut ties with parts of their difficult past.

- [Taylor] There was so much anti-Black violence that was occurring that you wanted to disassociate from anything that was seen as southern, and rural, and country.

- [Narrator] Many Black musicians who did not reject the rural music practices, shaped them into new sounds and styles like urban blues and rock and roll.

♪ When I woke up this morning ♪ ♪ All I, I had was gone again ♪ - Genre, like race, is a construct.

There's nothing elemental about it.

Understand why we create the rules, what are the rules inviting in, what are the rules excluding?

- [Narrator] In 1962, Ray Charles introduced more people to country music with his soulful renditions of country classics in modern sounds and country and western music.

- I was playing traditional country songs for my friends, and, you know, people that would come by the studio and they was like, man, listen, Nashville ain't going for it.

I started adding 808s and stuff to those traditional country songs.

♪ Do the two step, then cowboy boogie ♪ ♪ Grab a sweetheart and spin out with them ♪ - [Narrator] Blanco's song went viral on TikTok and has over 190 million views on YouTube as of summer 2024.

- The world chose the song and did what it did.

This was 100% organic.

- In 2019, Lil Nas X's "Old Town Road" featuring Billy Ray Cyrus became the longest running number one song in Billboard history.

♪ Can't nobody tell me nothing ♪ - [Narrator] However, collaborations like this aren't new.

They go as far back as 1930.

♪ Yodel-lay-ee, eh-ee, oh-dee-lay-ee ♪ - Jimmie Rogers collaborated with jazz trumpeter, Louis Armstrong, on "Blue Yodel 9", which blended country with blues, jazz, and folk genres.

Despite these artists' popularity, lesser known musicians have played a significant role in challenging the identity politics of country music.

♪ So rock me mama like a wagon wheel ♪ ♪ Rock me mama any way you feel ♪ ♪ When we rise up, no weapon can stop us ♪ - I am very proud of XXX's and OOO's, "An American Girl" that came out in 1994.

♪ Got a picture of her mama in heels and pearls ♪ - My daughter, she was the person who tied her hair up in ribbons and bows, signed her letters with Xs and Os.

She was the inspiration for that song.

It's not only a brown woman, but it is a brown woman, and that the brown woman can be the universal.

and I've had over 20 something songs recorded.

Almost all of them were painful to me because the identities of my heroes and sheroes, particularly my sheroes, have been whitewashed.

♪ He was black as the sky on a moonless night ♪ - I've had people explain to me about my own song.

That meant he had a dark spirit, or he wore black clothes like Johnny Cash.

No, it meant he was an African American cowboy, and my own daughter encouraged me.

She encouraged me to pursue a new album.

♪ It was black as the sky on a moonless night ♪ - Alice partnered with Oh Boy Records to create "My Black Country", where her songs were performed and recorded by Black female artists for the first time.

So how does Beyonce fit into this long history?

♪ They used to say I spoke too country ♪ ♪ Then the rejection changed ♪ ♪ Said I wasn't country enough ♪ - Beyonce did her research.

Country music is not this one size fit all.

It's fluid, it can be anything.

- No Black woman has ever had a number one country song as an artist until Beyonce.

Women have had a hard time in country music, period.

Getting radio time, white women, all women, but Black women, indigenous women, Asian women have been excluded completely.

There's a cultural redlining that has occurred until this Beyonce moment.

- [Narrator] Linda Martell, featured on Beyonce's album, was the first Black female solo artist to play the Grand Ole Opry.

Her single "Color Him Father", reached number 22 on the Billboard charts in 1969.

♪ Think I'll color him father ♪ ♪ I think I'll color him love ♪ - [Narrator] Despite her talent, her label shifted attention to supporting their white artists.

Racism quickly ended her career in the genre all those years ago.

- You know, I've been a country songwriter working out of Nashville for 41 years.

It was against a lot of opposition.

That only galvanized my determination to persist.

- [Narrator] According to a Black Music Action Coalition 2022 report, during 19 years of program country radio with 11,484 unique songs played, 13 Black artists were represented.

- People gotta understand the power of radio.

It's hard for white people to get radio.

So you know it's gonna be hard for Black people to get it.

Songs like mine went viral without radio 'cause radio said they wouldn't play the song.

- [Narrator] In addition to that, the Country Music Hall of Fame has only inducted three Black artists since its 1964 charter.

- [Alice] Black people do listen to country music on a weekly and monthly basis in large numbers.

- [Charlie] There is more interest in country music than ever before.

- [Taylor] I could go on and on by the amount of Black people in country music who received an uptick in streams, which is beautiful.

But there has to be a continued investment in the country music artists, and in Black country music.

- [Charlie] As much as it is concerned with its heritage, it's also a genre, which is an amalgamation of so many different influences and is constantly evolving.

What country music will sound like in 10 years is nothing like it's gonna sound like today, and that's very exciting.

- I thought I would retire without ever seeing a Black woman, a woman of color, at the top of the country charts.

So I am so glad that I live to see that.

- The times are changing and the world has to accept the times.

- The best way to celebrate the genre's brilliance and where it's moving is to recognize country music's multi-layered history, and to continue uplifting existing and emerging Black and brown country musicians.

Do you use the banjo?

- I actually have a banjo right here, but my use of a banjo is finger picking mainly in records.

I couldn't even...

They don't have no strings on it.

(both laughing) Two strings broke.

It like (imitates banjo twanging).

- [Interviewer] You're good.

- I can tap on it like a tambourine.