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Beyoncé has moved the needle for the culture in several ways beyond music, leaving her indelible mark on fashion, footwear, hair care, and beyond. The Houston superstar’s latest venture is SirDavis, a whisky named after her great-grandfather and adds to her deep commitment to honoring her family’s influence and legacy.
Via a collaboration with Moët Hennessy, a subsidiary of LVMH, Beyoncé Knowles-Carter brings SirDavis to the forefront. According to a recent press release, the creation of SirDavis took years of development. The Cowboy Cater artist is said to be a fan of Japanese whisky and worked with Moët Hennessy intending to broaden the reach of the spirit within the American market. In a statement, the award-winning entertainer explained the inspiration behind the impending bra.d
“I’ve always been drawn to the power and confidence I feel when drinking quality whisky and wanted to invite more people to experience that feeling,” says SirDavis Founder Beyoncé Knowles-Carter. “When I discovered that my great-grandfather had been a moonshine man, it felt like my love for whisky was fated. SirDavis is a way for me to pay homage to him, uniting us through a new shared legacy. In partnering with Moët Hennessy, we have crafted a delicious American whisky that respects tradition but also empowers people to experience something new and unique in the category. You can taste it better than I could ever tell you — welcome, SirDavis.”
SirDavis is named after Davis Hogue, Beyoncé’s great-grandfather who worked as a farmer and also made moonshine during the restrictive Prohibition period. According to family lore, Hogue would make batches of whisky and stash it inside trees for his family and friends to sip. And now, Hogue’s great-granddaughter will carry on tradition along with her vision of refinement and collaboration with Moët Hennessy.
“SirDavis is not only a revelatory and exceptional American Whisky, which we are very proud of. It is also a testament of the unwavering dedication to craftsmanship, heritage and innovation shared by LVMH and Beyoncé Knowles-Carter,” said Bernard Arnault, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of LVMH.
Moët Hennessy tapped the services of Dr. Bill Lumsden, an avowed Master Distiller who has worked on fine Scotch whisky brands such as Glenmorangie and Ardbeg, names that should be familiar to readers of the Spirit.Ed column. Dr. Lumsden’s years of expertise in the whisky world were applied to creating SirDavis. Under his guidance, the team landed on a mash bill that puts the spice of rye at the forefront at 51 percent, the remaining 49 percent comprised of malted barley. After perfecting the balance of the distillate, the juice is then finished in sherry casks.
“With SirDavis, we looked to challenge the category norms and offer something new in the space,” said Lumsden. “The distinctive grain selection and unusual secondary maturation in sherry casks helped us achieve a signature profile completely unique to SirDavis, one of bold sophistication.”
Before going to market, SirDavis was anonymously submitted to several spirit competitions featuring some of the world’s top judges in the adult beverages space. In 2023, SirDavis won Best In Class for American Whiskey from the 2023 SIP Awards. In addition, SirDavis earned a Gold Medal designation from the 2023 New York International Spirits Competition and a 93-point rating from the 2023 Ultimate Spirits Challenge.
The design of the bottle was created with input from Beyoncé, and the whisky is a true homegrown product that is finished, blended, and bottled in Texas. SirDavis also owns the historic mark of being Moët Hennessy’s first spirits brand developed entirely internally by the company in the United States and has its headquarters in Houston.
While SirDavis has yet to launch nationally, interested parties can preorder SirDavis via its website. It will also become available at various retail locations across the United States, London, Paris, and Tokyo beginning in September. The airports LAX, JFK, and SFO will also sell the bottle.
To learn more, click here. View the bottle here as well.
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Photo: Julian Dakdouk/Moët Hennessy
Twenty-five years ago, singer-songwriter Shelby Lynne was done making her way through Nashville’s Music Row system. She’d released her first album, Sunrise, a country project produced by Bob Montgomery and Billy Sherrill, in 1989. Her sophomore album, Tough All Over, spurred top 30 Country Airplay singles with the title track and “I’ll Lie Myself to Sleep.” Lynne began contributing writing on her fourth and fifth albums, but longed for creative freedom.
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Then, she made the career-shifting decision to move from Nashville to California, crafting her liberating 2000 project I Am Shelby Lynne which perhaps served as her true debut. The album marked her foray from country into soul and R&B, with her commanding vocal and writing perspectives shining through every track. I Am propelled her to win new artist of the year at the 2001 Grammys, and marked her first project to debut on the Billboard 200.
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This year sees the celebration of I Am Shelby Lynne’s silver anniversary, celebrated through the re-release of the project’s vinyl and digital versions. As her decampment from Nashville to California propelled her breakthrough those years ago, Lynne’s return to Music City two years ago has heralded her latest reinvention — as she also releases her ninth studio album, Consequences of the Crown, which arrived Aug. 16 via Monument Records. The album marks her first since 2021’s The Servant.
After living in California for the better part of three decades, Lynne relocated back to Nashville to live closer to her sister, fellow singer-songwriter Allison Moorer, and to her nephew.
“I just wanted to get back to the South after all that time,” Lynne tells Billboard, noting songwriting — not recording — was her primary goal. “My original plan was to scooch into Nashville real quiet and find me some folks to write some songs.”
But Nashville’s creative community ultimately had other plans. Her friend Waylon Payne offered to introduce her back into Nashville’s writing circles. The first person Payne brought over was Ashley Monroe. “We were instantly drawn to each other and actually wrote a couple of songs on the first day,” Lynne recalls.
From there, her community of collaborators kept expanding, with Monroe bringing her Pistol Annies cohorts Angaleena Presley and Miranda Lambert — and soon, Little Big Town’s Karen Fairchild was brought into the fold. It was Fairchild who set Consequences of the Crown into motion, first becoming Lynne’s manager and then encouraging her to record the album and landing Lynne a deal with Monument Records.
“She’s just an amazing woman,” Lynne shares. “Karen said, ‘Well, we need a new record from you,’ and I was like, ‘Oh, no. I think that part of my career… I think I’m done. I just want to write songs.’ But she made some calls and Katie McCartney at Monument [Records] said, ‘Let’s make a record.’ So here I am.”
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Lynne began those writing sessions last Spring, with the deal with Monument happening in August. When it came time to record the album, the all-woman creative collective naturally fell together: Lynne, Fairchild, Monroe and engineer Gena Johnson.
“We found ourselves in there together, and we just decided we’d go four ways on this thing,” Lynne says. “We met when the four of us could meet, because we found that we would never work without the four of us together, because it just didn’t feel right. The songs we were writing were good songs. I’d look around my living room and see these amazing, talented people. I felt loved and kind of taken in.”
The album’s pop-fused, yet stripped-back instrumentation, features Lynne not only on vocals, but on bass, acoustic and electric guitar, percussion, and drums. Monroe played a range of instruments including keys, piano, organ and acoustic guitar, while Fairchild contributed percussion and background vocals, with Johnson also handling percussion and programming. Also on the project is Eleonore Denig on strings, while Lynne’s sister Moorer offers background vocals.
Monroe is a co-writer on all but one of the songs on the album, with Fairchild contributing to five of the songs. Other writer credits scattered throughout the project include Payne (“Keep the Light On”) and Presley (“Keep the Light On,” “Over and Over”), as well as Meg McRee, Carter Faith and Jedd Hughes.
In the process, Lynne found a camaraderie and safe space for free-flowing collaboration and emotional excavation. Music led the way in the studio, leaving room for unexpected twists and turns, spoken-word moments, vocal howls and sonic shifts. The new album also nods to the work of I Am Shelby Lynne, as “But I Ain’t” interpolates “Dreamsome” from that seminal album — another mark of that impulsive studio vibe.
“When I’m on the mic and I’m hearing the music, letting things happen, it just kind of fell down because it was so real and we had to keep it,” Lynne says.
The album opens with “Truth We Know,” which Lynne calls “a sketch of words that I had written down right in the middle of my heart breaking.” Songs including “Shattered,” “Consequences” and “Over and Over” offer up the nuanced process of navigating a breakup and the work of healing and moving on.
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“It was a little bit devastating for me, and I was in a sad kind of a way,” Lynne says. “These songs are little chapters of the pain I was going through when I was breaking up with somebody, and I compare it to all of my crappy relationships, but they can fit in through all of the broken hearts that we’ve had.”
The Nashville Lynne has returned to has both changed and stayed the same. It’s notable that in that time, the Nashville country music scene has moved from the height of the “bro country” era dominated by hip-hop-inflected country songs recorded by white males, and the spark of “Tomatogate” that continues to see women artists fighting for a precious few slots on male-dominated mainstream country radio. Currently, traditional-leaning artists including Lainey Wilson and Cody Johnson are making waves, while as country audiences take to streaming, Americana and folk-oriented artists such as Zach Bryan, The Red Clay Strays, Tyler Childers and Allison Russell are surging, and Shaboozey’s genre-blending anthem “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” is dominating.
“Of course, Nashville’s grown into this huge city, so that’s different,” Lynne says of the changes she’s seen in Music City. “But the good old boy network still runs — it’s just another set of boys. So that exists.
However, Lynne, who is gay, also acknowledges that Nashville has changed in other important ways: “How can I put it? Queers have come in and we just f—king run everything. And so, Nashville has had to embrace all of the changes — and look at this eclectic group of people we have, like Allison Russell, Fancy Haygood… people that are saying, ‘I’m doing this.’
“I’m proud of musicians just taking over and saying, ‘F—k you. This is who I am. I’m country. Kiss my a–,’” she continues. “I don’t think genre really matters anymore, because everybody’s doing exactly whatever in the hell they want to do, musically. I love the variety, and the mixed bag of what country music truly is — I don’t listen to mainstream music much, but I guess they’re Americana artists.”
Consequences also serves as a potent reminder of Lynne’s own trailblazing, genre-blending ways, as she melded different styles long before it was the “in” thing to do — though she’s quick to recognize that fearless spirit in others, such as Beyoncé. Lynne is a fan of Beyoncé’s country-influenced Cowboy Carter, a project she calls “well done and brilliant. I couldn’t wait until it came out because I love her and I said, ‘This is not just a country album, but it’s an album for the country.’ It’s an uplifting, creative experience.”
Ahead, Lynne has select shows, including what is sure to be a homecoming of sorts at Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium on Sept. 26. But for now, she’s celebrating the creative community that has formed around her, as she’s open to exploration on her next ventures.
“I’m still kind of blown away that everything happened the way it did, because it’s just proof that you don’t need to plan everything — just get out of the way,” she says.
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One of Beyoncé’s hits is now the backdrop for Vice President Kamala Harris’ first presidential campaign video.
Vice President Kamala Harris’ bid to become president in November has taken off briskly. And her first campaign video features one of Beyoncé’s greatest hits to capture the energy of the moment. The ad, entitled “We Choose Freedom,” has the R&B superstar’s song “Freedom” from her 2016 album, Lemonade, in the background. It begins with a voiceover narration from Harris: “There are some people who think we should be a country of chaos. Of fear. Of hate.” Images of the Republican presidential candidate, Donald Trump, are shown on the screen along with his vice presidential pick, JD Vance. “But us. We choose something different. We choose freedom.”
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“The freedom not just to get by, but get ahead. The freedom to be safe from gun violence. The freedom to make decisions about your own body. We choose a future where no child lives in poverty. Where we all can afford health care, where no one is above the law.” After a montage of moments where Harris is shown speaking to crowds and greeting the public as she speaks about those positions, the video then shows Trump’s infamous mug shot taken concerning his election interference case in Fulton County, Georgia. “Where no one is above the law,” she says before continuing: “We believe in the promise of America and we are ready to fight for it, because when we fight, we win.”
The campaign team for Harris got the green light to use the song as it was noted that she used it during her first arrival at the team’s headquarters on Monday (July 23), after being endorsed by President Joe Biden to be the Democratic nominee after he dropped out of the race on Sunday (July 22). The singer is known for having strict guidelines about the clearance and usage of her music, but a source reported to CNN that “quick approval” was given just hours before that campaign headquarters visit.
Beyoncé has historically supported Democratic nominees for president, and while she hasn’t officially commented on Harris’ run, her mother, Tina Knowles, declared her support in an Instagram post on Sunday evening. “Thank you, President Biden for your service and your leadership. Go Vice President Kamala Harris for President. Let’s Go,” she wrote in the caption of the photo of herself with Harris in the post.
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Beyoncé and Big Freedia are the subject of a new lawsuit. A group claims the two lifted elements from their project for “Break My Soul”.
As reported by Digital Music News a four person music collective feels that their work has been infringed upon by Beyoncé. Back in 2002 Da Showstoppaz recorded a single titled “Release A Wiggle” as per a suggestion from one of their colleagues. Surprisingly the song started to pick up traction in their local neighborhood in New Orleans and the group started to perform shows. The group would dissolve in 2004 after Hurricane Katrina ravished the city.
“Break My Soul” features some words from Big Freedia where she says “Release ya wiggle” multiple times on the outro. This single also samples Big Freedia’s 2014 track “Explode” where the Bounce Music pioneer says “Release ya wiggle” throughout the chorus. According to the filing submitted on behalf the group both works infringe on their break out song. “‘Explode’ infringes on Da Showstoppaz’ ‘Release A Wiggle’ twelve times,” the document reads. “As the infringing phrase ‘release yo’ wiggle’ and several other substantially similar phrases are featured prominently in the song. Any reasonable person listening to ‘Release A Wiggle’ and ‘Explode’ would conclude that the songs are substantially similar.”
Neither Beyoncé or Big Freedia have yet to publicly address the matter. You can listen to “Explode” and Da Showstoppaz “Release A Wiggle” and compare below.
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“We were pretty prepared for this moment,” says Shaboozey, lounging on the floor of a Los Angeles recording studio. While putting the finishing touches on his forthcoming album, Where I’ve Been, Isn’t Where I’m Going (due out May 31), the fast-rising country artist is — perhaps for the first time — reflecting on how he arrived at this point in his career. Not only has the buzzy 29-year-old been working in music for nearly a decade, but a recent assist from Beyoncé helped spark a career-shifting breakout moment of his own.
After appearing as a featured guest on a pair of songs on the icon’s chart-topping and record-breaking Cowboy Carter (“Spaghettii” with Linda Martell and “Sweet * Honey * Buckiin”), Shaboozey released a solo single: the jaunty country-rap anthem “A Bar Song (Tipsy),” which interpolates J-Kwon’s 2004 smash “Tipsy” — and, just three weeks later, broke records of its own.
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Even though his Bey-assisted breakout was unveiled first, Shaboozey suspects his solo track was the reason he was featured on Cowboy Carter at all. “Someone at Parkwood or in Beyoncé’s camp heard [“A Bar Song”] from me playing it live and was like, ‘We have to bring him in the studio,’ ” Shaboozey recalls. “Then the Beyoncé [album] came out, and we were like, ‘Oh, it’s time. Drop it.’ ”
After rising from No. 6 to rule Billboard’s Hot Country Songs chart dated May 4, Shaboozey and Beyoncé became the first Black artists to score back-to-back leaders in the chart’s 66-year history with “Texas Hold ’Em” and “A Bar Song.” His hit also debuted atop the all-genre Digital Song Sales list and has peaked at No. 3 on the Billboard Hot 100, marking his first solo entry on the chart. “A Bar Song” has also exploded on TikTok (soundtracking more than 150,000 posts in a few weeks) and has collected 64.9 million official on-demand streams through April 25, according to Luminate.
“I had been wanting to flip a 2000s song for a while,” Shaboozey says, noting Petey Pablo’s “Raise Up” was also in the running. “I just said, ‘Everybody at the bar getting tipsy,’ and then we were like, ‘Oh, sh-t!’ The producer picked up the guitar and started playing the chords, and then we started writing, just having fun and being creative.”
Shaboozey photographed on April 18, 2024 at Dover Studio in Los Angeles.
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Shaboozey photographed on April 18, 2024 at Dover Studio in Los Angeles.
Sage East
According to Shaboozey, J-Kwon is “more excited” about the song than he is. The two have been texting ever since the first sample clearance request, during which the St. Louis rapper assured Shaboozey that his song was “outta here.” (Upon its release in 2004, J-Kwon’s “Tipsy” reached No. 2 on the Hot 100.) “Feeling like you did the song you’re flipping justice and then getting that co-sign, not everybody gets that,” Shaboozey gushes.
An artist who cartwheels across country, hip-hop, rock and R&B, Shaboozey is a product of the melting pot that is Virginia. Born Collins Chibueze in the northern part of the state to Nigerian parents, his earliest musical memory is listening to Juvenile’s “Back That Azz Up,” along with a healthy dose of Kenny Rogers and Garth Brooks that his father would play. In 2015, Shaboozey experienced his first viral moment with “Jeff Gordon,” an independently released piano-inflected trap banger he says was “a whole moment in DMV music” that he conceived after sourcing a Gordon racing jacket and delving into NASCAR’s fashion aesthetics. Two years later, another quasi-viral song, “Winning Streak,” helped Shaboozey score a record deal with Republic, which released his 2018 debut album, Lady Wrangler.
In 2020, he scored a manager in Abas Pauti, whom he met through mutual friends. “After talking through our lives and hearing the music,” Pauti recalls, “I knew that I needed to be around and support in any way I could.” (Shaboozey is now co-managed by Range Media’s Jared Cotter.) Shaboozey released his second album, 2022’s Cowboys Live Forever, Outlaws Never Die, on indie label EMPIRE, saying his team there has “been down for the ride… it’s like a family.”
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Since Cowboys Live Forever, Shaboozey has enjoyed a string of wins that set the stage for his breakout 2024. Late last year, he released “Let It Burn,” the lead single from Where I’ve Been, Isn’t Where I’m Going. It quickly gained ample traction online, even drawing attention from Timbaland and Diplo. And it was during those early months of his album campaign that Shaboozey received what became a life-changing call: a request to co-write with Beyoncé. “What I loved about [the] Beyoncé album is the inspiration and the influence that she had are probably the same as mine,” he says. “We’re studyingthe same things.”
Evocative follow-up track “Annabelle” maintained momentum while Shaboozey’s live performance of “Vegas” for music discovery platform COLORS, posted in March just weeks before Cowboy Carter arrived, has since amassed 1.3 million YouTube views.
Now, as he finishes his third album — which he teases will include “crazy surprises featurewise” — while also opening on tour for pop artist Jessie Murph, Shaboozey is a front-runner to dominate the summer. But he’s already thinking well beyond this moment. Ahead, he hopes to share one other thing with Queen Bey: “I want the Grammy.”
Shaboozey photographed on April 18, 2024 at Dover Studio in Los Angeles.
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Shaboozey photographed on April 18, 2024 at Dover Studio in Los Angeles.
Sage East
This story originally appeared in the May 11, 2024, issue of Billboard.
Linda Martell’s granddaughter Marquia Thompson is running late to launch her 82-year-old grandmother’s Zoom interview with Billboard — but for a good reason.
In late March, Beyoncé featured Martell on two spoken-word segments on Cowboy Carter. Shortly after, the star posted a photo of herself wearing an official Martell T-shirt from the pioneering country artist’s website — and today, Thompson needed to run by the post office to mail some of the nearly 600 orders she has received since. Martell’s merchandise sales aren’t all that have been soaring. Her catalog streams also ballooned from a little under 5,000 from March 22 to 24 to 61,000 from March 29 to 31, according to Luminate — an 1,100% surge immediately following the album’s March 29 release.
The attention is long overdue. In 1969, Martell became the first Black woman to play the Grand Ole Opry. At the time, she didn’t know she was making history, though she was very aware that there were no other “Black guys or Black girls there” onstage or off, she says. She also didn’t know that she would receive two standing ovations. “I was surprised,” she says with a laugh.
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Her breakthrough single, “Color Him Father,” peaked at No. 22 in September 1969 on the Hot Country Songs chart; it remained the highest-charting track on the tally by a Black woman for more than 50 years until Beyoncé’s “Texas Hold ’Em” reached No. 1 in February. And yet, until Beyoncé helped shine a light on them, Martell’s accomplishments had largely faded into obscurity.
“When I was actively pursuing country music 14 years ago, I Googled ‘Black female country singers’ and Linda Martell’s name came up,” says Mickey Guyton, who wasn’t previously aware of Martell. “She is truly the reason why I had the courage to sing country music.”
Martell released only one album, 1970’s Color Me Country, but it was a beauty. Her voice was clear and resonant with plenty of twang reflecting her South Carolina roots on the Shelby Singleton-produced set of traditional-leaning tunes. In addition to “Color Him Father,” two other tracks charted in the top 60. In its review at the time, Billboard wrote, “Linda impresses as a female Charley Pride. She has a terrific style and a true feeling for a country lyric.”
Linda Martell with her granddaughter Marquia Thompson (left) and daughter Tikethia Thompson.
Gavin McIntyre
But by 1974, fed up with label clashes, a legal battle with her manager and the ongoing racism she endured, Martell left Nashville.
“Linda Martell has always resonated with me personally because her story is so many of our stories, which is why I named my show after her,” says artist Rissi Palmer, who hosts Apple Music’s influential Color Me Country Radio program. “She didn’t ask for all the politics — she just wanted to sing. Period. I admire her grace under pressure, focus to stay the course and the way she advocated for herself against a manager and record producer who were interested in gimmicks and not creating a lasting career for her.”
More than a half-century later, Martell, who lives with her daughter and son-in-law outside of Columbia, S.C., looks back on those days as bittersweet. Sitting in her favorite spot — a gray reclining lounger in the living room — and wrapped in a black and red blanket, she is quick to respond and even quicker to laugh and smile, despite some of the painful memories that clearly still sting. She relies on Thompson, who serves as her de facto manager, to fill in some details.
Though she started out performing pop and R&B, Martell grew up listening to country music and had a natural affinity for its cadences. Her sharecropper father sang country songs around their Leesville, S.C., house, and the country station came in loudest on the family radio, around which they would listen to Grand Ole Opry broadcasts on Saturday nights.
Her future manager heard Martell sing a handful of country songs when she performed at an Air Force base, and she moved to Nashville, where producer Singleton signed her. Singing songs with good stories appealed to her, and Martell cut Color Me Country in one day. “That was easy,” she says. “I was singing always already, so it didn’t bother me. I had fun. It was great.”
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During that period, there were moments both good and bad. But mainly, Martell recalls, she felt lonely. “Black artists didn’t sing that kind of song,” she says of country music. Though she says she didn’t have issues with any of her fellow artists, no other acts, white or Black, encouraged her, with the exception of multi-instrumentalist and Hee Haw host Roy Clark. “He’d make you feel at home,” she remembers of her appearance on the variety show. “He would sit beside me and talk. It felt very natural.”
It was worse on the often-hostile road. Her late brother, Lee, was in her band and provided company, but the heckling from some audiences was painful. “Most of the time, you really didn’t pay attention because if you do, oh, it hurt,” she says. “But we heard it. Me and my brother wouldn’t [respond]. He’d say, ‘Well, they’re ignorant.’ We came to work, and we knew what to do and what to say. That’s all.”
After her first manager sued her (over his commission) and Singleton and his label switched their focus to Jeannie C. Riley (who had a huge hit with “Harper Valley, PTA”) but tried to prevent Martell from recording elsewhere, she eventually got “tired of it” and left Nashville.
Martell revisited R&B music and lived in California, Florida and the Bronx, where she and her then-boyfriend owned a record store. In the 1990s, she returned to South Carolina, where she drove a school bus and then worked in a classroom until she retired in her 60s. She now enjoys spending time with her five children, 13 grandchildren and 16 great-grandchildren.
As Beyoncé worked on Cowboy Carter, her team asked Thompson if Martell would be interested in appearing on it, then presented Martell with the script for her spoken interludes. Martell was already a big Beyoncé fan. “One thing my grandmother will notice is a young woman who can sing,” Thompson says. “I’m very, very glad” to be on the album, Martell says, adding that she appreciates the attention Beyoncé has brought to her music.
Linda Martell photographed on April 24, 2024 near Columbia, S.C.
Gavin McIntyre
But Martell had already been reflecting on her story before Beyoncé came calling. In 2020, Thompson began work on Bad Case of the Country Blues: The Linda Martell Story, a documentary about her grandmother featuring interviews with Palmer, songwriter-author Alice Randall and others. She plans to screen the nearly finished film locally this fall before a wider release. Thompson launched a GoFundMe to cover the final touches and hopefully release the doc independently in order to retain ownership.
Despite all the hardships and a career cut short through no fault of her own, Martell’s response is swift when asked whether she’s glad she made country music in the first place: She quickly nods yes. “It’s very nice,” she says. “I wouldn’t change nothing.”
This story will appear in the May 11, 2024, issue of Billboard.
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Call Me Country: Beyoncé & Nashville’s Renaissance arrives via Max on Friday (April 26).
Produced by CNN Flash Docs, the documentary examines the “impact of how high-profile artists like Lil Nas X and Beyoncé are challenging the country music status quo” and highlights how Black artists in Nashville “laid the foundation for this transformation,” according to a press release.
Call Me Country will feature commentary from country artists like Rhiannon Giddens, who played banjo on Beyoncé’s “Texas Hold ‘Em,” Brothers Osborne’s John and T.J. Osborne, Rissi Palmer, Aaron Vance and Denitia along with culture and country music experts: Touré, Larisha Paul, Chris Molanphy, Kyle Coroneos, Keith Hill, and Holly G. and Tanner D, Co-Directors of the Black Opry.
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Read on for ways to stream the documentary for free.
How to Stream ‘Call Me Country’ for Free
Call Me Country will begin streaming on Friday, exclusively on Max.
As one of the larger streaming platforms for documentaries, reality TV, movies, live news, sports and other entertainment, Max has a range of exclusive content, in addition to programs from HBO, CNN, HGTV, TLC, TMC, Food Network and other cable networks.
How much does Max cost? Join for $9.99 per month, or subscribe to the annual plan ($99) to save 20% off. Max is also available through on streaming platforms such as DirecTV, Hulu and Prime Video.
Viewers streaming internationally can use ExpressVPN for access to streaming platforms from outside of the U.S..
Can you get a free trial to Max? Unfortunately, Max does not offer a free trial, but you can stream free episodes of Quiet on the Set: The Dark Side of Kids TV, Game of Thrones and House of the Dragon.
The best way to land a free trial would be to go through a third party to stream Call Me Country for free. Click here for ways to secure a free subscription to Max.
Watch the trailer for Call Me Country below.
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Beyoncé is once again paying homage to her roots in a big way, this time she’s honoring the craft that helped her mother pave her way–cosmetology.
Through her Cécred x BeyGOOD Student Scholarships initiative, Beyoncé will contribute $500,000 to five Black hair and beauty schools, including the Franklin Institute. The owner of the Franklin Institute, Ron Jemison Jr., shared how honored he feels to be chosen as the exclusive cosmetology school scholarship partner for Beyoncé’s hometown.
Jemison also highlighted the special connection with Ms. Tina, Beyoncé’s renowned mother and stylist, who got her cosmetology license from the Franklin Institute back in the 80s. This recognition holds particular significance as the institute celebrates a century of service and excellence in training the Houston community. Other schools include Beaver Beauty Academy in Atlanta, Trenz Beauty Academy in Chicago, Universal College of Beauty in Los Angeles, and Janas Cosmetology Academy in New Jersey.
The scholarships were previously announced in February, the same day the superstar debuted her highly-anticipated haircare line, Cécred. Beyoncé told Essence magazine at the time of the launch, that she grew up watching her mother work as a hairstylist. It was in her mother’s salon, Beyoncé said, that she realized she wanted to be a performer.
“So much of the fabric of who I am came from her salon,” Beyoncé said.
The scholarship is intended to assist with tuition fees and other educational expenses, recipients are required to maintain satisfactory academic performances and provide periodic updates on their educational progress and experiences as part of the program. The selection process involves a review of applications by a committee comprised of representatives from BeyGood and participating trade schools, focusing on the eligibility criteria, academic merit, and demonstrated financial need.
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If you’re white and are thinking about criticizing Beyoncé about her Cowboy Carter album, don’t you dare. Only one person can do that, and that person is Azealia Banks.
The hot-tempered rapper from Harlem had time for British pop star Lily Allen, who took to her favorite medium, Instagram Stories, to speak on what’s on her mind and call out Allen for what she is saying is “random racism,” being thrown out King Bey.
Azealia Banks reshared a story of Allen having the caucasity to say something about Beyoncé’s latest album, something Banks has already done.
Per HipHopDX:
“Shall we discuss that phone call to me – a few years ago – obviously off your face – crying and sobbing asking me to forgive you for randomly being racist?” she began, referring to the feud that the pair had eleven years ago that concluded with Banks telling Allen that her then-husband, Sam Cooper, “looks like a thumb.
She continued: “And I quote, well, I just figured since I’m a white girl and you’re just some Black girl that I could shit on you…”
Azealia Banks’ Criticism About Cowboy Carter
Banks’ IG attack on Allen comes after she called out Beyoncé in her signature style, claiming she “dozed off” while listening to it.
“Absolutely not,” she declared after joking that she might have to “eat her words” when it comes to previous criticism of Bey’s turn into the Country curve. “Themes r redundant. The lyrics really are forced. Album is too long… Plus who is this imaginary adversary sis thinks still wants to hump on [JAY-Z] in 2024?
“She’s gotta find new content. Nobody, and I mean NOBODY thinks he’s even remotely attractive …. LOL,” she added before finding positive things to say about the non-vocal aspects the album. “Great work from the band/producers/engineers. Cool and interesting work on the sonics. Might be her first sonically cool attempt at being arty…”
While both Allen and Banks have their issues with the project, Beyoncé is enjoying another hit album.
Just saying.
The buzz surrounding the March 29 release of Beyoncé’s country-inspired Act II: Cowboy Carter project, the second in a trilogy of albums following 2022’s Renaissance, has led to streaming lifts and a wave of recognition for several of the rising Black country artists featured on the project, including Shaboozey, Willie Jones, Tanner Adell, Brittney Spencer, Reyna Roberts and Tiera Kennedy. According to Luminate, Roberts’s catalog streams jumped 59%, followed by Adell (58%), Kennedy (56%), Spencer (41%), Jones (31%) and Shaboozey (16%).
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The wide-ranging Cowboy Carter folds in music including country, Americana, an Italian aria, songs made popular by Chuck Berry, The Beatles and The Beach Boys, as well as moments of Brazilian funk, and welcomes a spectrum of artists including pop hitmakers Miley Cyrus and Post Malone, spoken cameos from Dolly Parton and Willie Nelson and an interpolation of Patsy Cline’s “I Fall to Pieces.” Meanwhile, the album also pays tribute to pioneers such as Black female country trailblazer Linda Martell, while shining a light on country music’s Black roots and the legacy of Black country artists who have paved (and are paving) their own paths.
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While Adell, Kennedy, Roberts and Spencer offer up vocals mostly collectively on “Blackbiird,” and provide harmonies on other tracks, Shaboozey and Jones are each featured on separate tracks. Shaboozey, the Virginia-born artist known for his own genre-melding songs (including “Vegas,” “Beverly Hills” and his viral hit from 2023, “Let It Burn”), appears on two songs on Cowboy Carter: “Sweet Honey Buckiin’” and “Spaghettii.”
Shaboozey noted that like some other creators on the album, he spent time at a studio in Los Angeles. “It’s all collaborative,” he says of contributing his portion of songs to the project earlier this year. “Everyone’s working at the same time and different rooms and I came in a couple of days and recorded some parts. [Beyoncé] heard them later and liked them. It’s cool how you don’t know until the last moment if your part made it or not. We were waiting up until 9 p.m. PT [on album release day] to know if we made the cut.”
Martell, who was the first Black female country artist to perform on the Grand Ole Opry, does a spoken-word intro to “Spaghettii.” According to Luminate, she has since seen her catalog streams rise from a little under 5,000 streams during the weekend of March 22-24 to 61,000 streams from March 29-31, making a 1,100% surge. Shaboozey says when he began contributing to “Spaghettii,” he did not know about Martell’s segment.
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“That’s how Beyoncé, she likes to put things together, taking different parts of different things and different bridges, always experimenting with the sound, so very free-form over there,” he says, adding “I’m also a huge Linda Martell supporter and I admire her story. It’s cool how everything came together and I’m really honored to be on a song with these two incredible individuals.”
Shaboozey is also gearing up for the release of his own country album next month, with Where I’ve Been, Isn’t Where I’m Going, out May 31 via Empire. The project follows his previous projects, 2022’s Cowboys Live Forever, Outlaws Never Die and his 2018 debut Lady Wrangler.
He describes his upcoming album as “a little bit of this genre that even Cowboy Carter created, just a bit of everything. A lot of country, but some hip-hop moments on there, too. But a lot of my personal story and journey into those records as well.”
Louisiana native Jones offers up vocals on “Just for Fun,” which was written by Beyonce, Dave Hamelin, Jeff “Gitty” Gitelman and Ryan Beatty. Jones competed on The X Factor’s second season, where he auditioned with a version of Josh Turner’s “Your Man.” He issued his first album Down for It in 2021 and was part of the 2022 documentary For Love and Country, which focused on the careers, journeys and struggles of Black artists in country music. This week, he released his rendition of Usher’s “OMG” as part of a new Apple Music Sessions EP.
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He notes that his favorite line in “Just For Fun” is “Time heals everything/ I don’t need anything, Hallelujah.” “I got in the studio and I heard the song and I related to it more than d–n near any song I’ve ever heard in my life. To be on the same track as Beyoncé Giselle Knowles-Carter is definitely a check off my bucket list.”
“She’s bringing people back to themselves and doing a lot of introspective work,” Jones says. “She’s talking about growth, family and legacy and when life gives you lemons make Lemonade. Then after that, she gave us Homecoming and it’s like she’s saying, ‘Go back to your roots and get educated.’ Then she gives us Renaissance, like, ‘Let’s dance, let’s be free.’ So it comes to this album, too, with songs like ‘American Requiem,’ ‘Blackbiird,’ ‘Spaghettii.’ It’s cool to see everybody’s streams go up, just because Beyoncé believed in her legacy and her roots and her ancestors. She trusted the universe enough to walk by faith and not by sight and be humble and open. She’s transforming country music for the lost and found so we can find our way back.”
Jones also notes the impact he says Beyoncé has had so many genres of music. “I say Beyoncé is my favorite rapper. She jumped on [Megan Thee Stallion’s] ‘Savage,’ and you saw the rap girls get a moment. Then with ‘Black Is King,’ and dropped the album with Disney and you saw Afrobeats go. So she did the same thing with country. I hope she does that with R&B, I hope she brings that back, because I need a ‘Dream Girls Part 2.’”
Shaboozey sums, “It feels awesome. It feels great for someone like her to enter the space that me and a few others have just been building on and creating from for a long time. It’s just amazing. We’re so happy to have such a powerhouse of an artist that chose to take this journey to country, so it’s amazing to be a part of that.”