Country
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After joining forces with Keith Urban for the new Zorro series soundtrack, Carin León continues tapping into the country music realm by teaming up with Kane Brown for his next collaboration, Billboard can reveal.
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Marking León and Brown’s first collaborative effort, the pair will premiere their new single “The One (Pero No Como Yo)” on Thursday, Feb. 22, at 2024 Premio Lo Nuestro. The title indicates the song will be a heartfelt Spanglish bop. This also marks Brown’s second Latin effort after dropping “Lost in the Middle of Nowhere” with Becky G in 2019.
“After I recorded the song with Carin, he invited me to join him at the awards show to do the performance,” Brown tells Billboard exclusively. “I have never attended Premio Lo Nuestro, so I’m a little nervous and very excited … I see so many similarities between our fans and I’m incredibly grateful to be able to share my style of music with his fans and share Carin’s style of music with my fans.”
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Nominations for the 2024 awards ceremony were revealed in January, with 14-time nominee Maluma leading the pack. He’s followed by Peso Pluma (13), Grupo Frontera (10) and, with nine each, Karol G and Feid. Each of the leading artists are up for the coveted Premio Lo Nuestro artist of the year prize alongside the other top nominees, including León, Bad Bunny, Camilo, Ozuna and Shakira.
Meanwhile, Ana Barbara, Don Omar and Olga Tañon will receive this year’s Premio Lo Nuestro a la Trayectoria, Global Icon and Premio Lo Nuestro a la Excelencia special awards, respectively.
Co-hosted by Galilea Montijo, Clarissa Moline and Angélica Vale, the 2024 Premio Lo Nuestro will air live from Miami at 7 p.m. ET on Thursday, Feb. 22, via Univision.
Towering above the recent slate of country-intended projects is the surprise release of two new country songs from Beyoncé.
Beyoncé, owner of eight No. 1 Billboard Hot 100 hits and the most Grammy wins of all time, shook up the music industry once again on Sunday night (Feb. 11) by using a Super Bowl commercial to announce the release of new music, and thus, entering her country era. Though we don’t know the full spectrum of sounds that could be included on the entire project, she did release two country-flavored new songs, the up-tempo romp “Texas Hold ‘Em” and more Americana-flavored ballad “16 Carriages.” The two new songs are part of her upcoming March 29 album Act II, which follows her dance music-inspired Renaissance and is part of a three-act project.
Just how fully country radio stations embrace the new music remains to be seen, although “Texas Hold ‘Em” will officially be serviced to country radio on Feb. 20. Both of the new songs highlight Black roots musicians, with “Texas Hold ‘Em” featuring banjo from Rhiannon Giddens, while “16 Carriages” features pedal steel from Robert Randolph.
This isn’t Beyoncé’s first foray into country sounds, collaborations and more. At the 2007 American Music Awards, Sugarland (Jennifer Nettles and Kristian Bush) collaborated with Beyoncé on a performance of Bey’s “Irreplaceable,” which had spent 10 weeks atop the Hot 100. The Houston, Texas native has also performed at the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo several times, both as a solo artist and part of Destiny’s Child.
In 2016, she performed at the Country Music Association Awards, performing her song “Daddy Lessons” alongside The Chicks—a performance that was met with considerable controversy at the time. Meanwhile, country music queen (and recent Super Bowl national anthem performer) Reba McEntire turned her version of Beyoncé’s “If I Was a Boy” into a country hit back in 2010.
At the 2024 Grammy Awards, Beyoncé further signaled her country intentions, showing up to the ceremony in a Western-themed attire, including a cowboy hat and bolo tie. But even as far back as her announcement of Renaissance, promotional photos showed Beyonce donning a cowboy hat and seated atop a glass horse, while back in 2021, Beyonce’s Ivy Park x Adidas collaboration released a “Rodeo Collection,” featuring pink cow prints and denim-athleisure pieces.
Of the new crop of pop artists looking to cross into country, Beyonce is primed to once again make music history, as while several Black male artists such as Rucker, Charley Pride, Stoney Edwards, Blanco Brown and Jimmie Allen have earned country chart success over the decades, no solo Black female artist has yet earned a No. 1 Hot Country Songs or Country Airplay hit.
Which isn’t to say Black female artists have been absent from the country landscape. The Pointer Sisters earned a top 40 Hot Country Songs hit (and won a best country vocal performance by a duo or group Grammy) with “Fairytale” in 1974, while Anita Pointer teamed with Earl Thomas Conley for the No. 2 country hit “Too Many Times” in 1986. Linda Martell reached No. 22 on the Hot Country Songs chart with “Color Him Father” in 1969 and in 1977, Ruby Falls earned a top 40 hit on the Hot Country Songs chart with “You’ve Got to Mend This Heartache.” Mickey Guyton’s 2015 song “Better Than You Left Me” reached No. 34 on the Country Airplay chart. Other Black female artists who have charted on the Hot Country Songs chart include Rissi Palmer and Dona Mason.
It is also notable that with “Texas Hold ‘Em” and “16 Carriages,” Beyonce joins several current Black female artists who have adeptly crafted their own unique, genre-melting blends of country, pop, R&B and more — including Yola, Tanner Adell, Reyna Roberts, Madeline Edwards, Tiera and mother-daughter duo O.N.E the Duo.
When No Doubt take the stage together at Coachella in April for their first show in nine years Gwen Stefani predicts it will be “crazy.” The band’s singer and solo star told Jimmy Kimmel on Wednesday night (Feb. 14) that she’s really looking forward to reuniting with her old mates bassist Tony Kanal, guitarist Tom […]
Beyoncé loves a theme, and with Act II of her Renaissance album trilogy seemingly leaning country, the superstar has used her Southern roots to inspire her outfits lately. Explore Explore See latest videos, charts and news See latest videos, charts and news The “Break My Soul” singer attended the Luar runway show during New York […]
As Beyoncé enters her country era, the global superstar has the unequivocal support of at least one fellow artist — Reneé Rapp. During the Mean Girls star’s concert in Paris on Tuesday night (Feb. 13), Rapp delivered a faithful cover of Queen Bey’s 2016 country song “Daddy Lessons.” Dressed in a pair of baggy jeans […]
Forget yeehaw, it’s all about Bey-haw now! During the Super Bowl (Feb. 11), Beyoncé teased new music — in a glitzy Verizon commercial, no less — and by the time the Chiefs won, two new singles had appeared on streaming platforms. One of the new tracks, “Texas Hold ‘Em,” released alongside the plaintive “16 Carriages,” […]
Former Boston Red Sox and Cincinnati Reds star Bronson Arroyo’s punnily titled 2005 debut, Covering the Bases, included a cover of The Standells’ “Dirty Water” with Red Sox teammates and cracked the Billboard 200. Since his 2017 retirement, Arroyo has added songwriting to his arsenal, putting out 2023’s all-originals collection Some Might Say.
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How do you compare playing baseball and performing with your band onstage?
It’s kind of a strange thing. When you play at the highest level and you’re winning the World Series, or you win 15 games in a Major League season, you feel like you’re at the top of the mountain, doing your best work. I didn’t pick up a guitar until I was 27 years old. You never feel like you’re getting to the top. It’s this constant whittling of the wood, being in the basement, practicing over and over again. It doesn’t feel like something you were born to do. It feels like it’s something you’re constantly working to do to get better.
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In baseball, the metrics that show successes are as objective as they can be, but in music, even when you have chart data, it’s totally different, right?
Right. Absolutely. Nobody can deny if you win 15 games in a season or punch out 200. That’s a solid year. No one can take that from you. Music is an art and it’s totally subjective to the listener… If I was one of those kids who was 5 or 6 years old at the piano and I was born with this gift, as I was my athleticism, you might think about it differently. But it’s this constant grind, and I enjoy that.
How does your preparation differ between pitching and performing music?
Leading up to a show, it’s very similar. You get all those jitters. You watch guys in a baseball locker room going into a routine and you watch guys in the band run through their routines. That’s a very similar feeling to standing on the mound and listening to the National Anthem. Once you start pitching, all that stuff eases. It’s just a lot more intimate with the music. What the [baseball] crowd thinks of you in those moments isn’t quite that obvious and personal as when you’re looking people in the eye and thinking, “Are you singing this song along with me?”
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How much promotion do you do for your albums and shows?
Just a little bit. I’m not trying to make money off it. It’s always nice if extra money comes around, but that’s not the main thing. … I did a bunch of radio interviews and newspaper articles with writers from baseball and tried to infiltrate that world a little bit and do stuff that wouldn’t chew up too much of my time. I wasn’t trying to get on a plane and stop at every radio station in the country — which I would if I was 22 and in a van trying to push my music.
You’re on a golf trip now — are you doing music shows, or is this purely vacation?
No, not playing [live music] at all. I have a guitar with me, and these 10 songs we wrote, I’m trying to play them. There’s nowhere I go without having one — you know, those guys who go for a run four or miles every day, and if they don’t do it, it’s a problem. I’m just writing now. I’m going to try to put out 20 to 30 songs. I don’t even know what to do with them, to be honest with you. I’m just going to write a bunch of folk songs. Eventually, I’ll get them out.
Upon ending his 15-year career pitching for the Oakland A’s and San Francisco Giants, Zito followed in the musical footsteps of his parents, who both worked with Nat “King” Cole — his father as a conductor-arranger and his mother as a tour singer. Zito, whose country-folkish No Secrets EP hit No. 18 on Billboard‘s Heatseekers Albums charts in 2017, is now a producer-songwriter. The Cy Young Award winner and World Series champion spoke by phone from his Nashville studio.
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It’s legendarily difficult to make it on Music Row. How challenging has it been for you?
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The journey’s always a zigzag. My dream in music was always to be a writer-producer, even in my early baseball days, when I was able to hang out with some amazing producers in L.A. After I came to Nashville in 2015, [I] was a little more into the songwriting, which I view now as so necessary. Writing with a lot of great writers and published writers helped me so much in my role now as a producer.
When your album No Secrets charted in 2017, how did you celebrate?
It was a whirlwind, something we were doing to show more relevance here in the Nashville community, and maybe to some baseball fans who were going to continue to follow me on the music journey. It was honestly a surprise. My manager printed out a framed copy with a picture of the album. I have that in my studio now.
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During your baseball career, were you concentrating on writing songs?
No, I wrote chunks of songs. I wrote some complete songs. Like anyone who’s writing alone, you have a lot of ideas you don’t know how to finish. No one knows this: I actually had four songs I paid a friend of mine in L.A., who’s a great producer, to cut. It was when I was not pitching well at all for the Giants. [The producer] brought in some great [music] players, and it was all over the map — a bossa-nova song, a pop song, a country song. It was just me exploring. I wanted to release it — I even had the album artwork ready to go — but we realized it wasn’t such a good look getting paid $18 million [a year] to pitch and you’re sitting here trying to release music while you’re not doing your actual job.
What’s the best story your parents told you about working with Nat King Cole?
My father told me a story that blew my mind, which is the guy that wrote “Nature Boy.”
Eden Ahbez!
Eden Ahbez, dude! Come on! I’m sure some of the details were fuzzy. My father was Nat’s road conductor, so he was on the road a lot. They were at a venue somewhere and the tour manager, whoever it was, says, “There’s this guy, he wants to talk to you guys, he has a song to play.” They’re kind of curious, so they go out and there was a piano on stage. It was Eden Ahbez. At the time, I guess he was homeless, he had this song, and he said, “I’d love for you to cut it, Nat.” He gets on the piano and plays “Nature Boy” for them. It’s pretty mind-blowing to think that is how “Nature Boy” was born into this world, as far as the industry goes.
Who have you been producing in Nashville?
I have anywhere from two to three sessions a week. I’ll build the track through the day, we’ll get some vocals at the end of the day and I’ll have a nice demo, and then somebody wants to release something, they’ll come back, we’ll do a production deal, we’ll cut final vocals if we have to, add production. There’s an artist-development piece to it with the three artists I’m working with. Lexi Mackenzie, she’s like a country-pop girl, she’s incredible. It’s kind of a blank canvas.
How much do you miss baseball?
Ah, not at all, man. And I don’t mean any disrespect to it. But when I really sit down and watch a game or try to remember how it felt to be on the field — I have my World Series rings in the studio — I do start to miss it. My buddy sent me some TikTok of a pitcher for the A’s throwing 98 miles per hour in a bullpen, which is insane. I thought, “God, that must be so fun, to pump 98 with no adrenaline, just in a bullpen.” I have a complicated relationship with it. I tell myself I don’t miss it, but maybe I do. Maybe I’m trying to fill the gap by being so focused on music.
During Sunday night’s Super Bowl, Beyoncé dropped two new country-flavored songs, the galloping “Texas Hold ‘Em,” and the more reflective “16 Carriages.” But country radio stations have been initially slow to add the Houston-born superstar.
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In the two songs’ first 24-plus hours of release (from Sunday night through the end of Monday), eight reporters to Billboard’s Country Airplay chart played “Texas Hold ‘Em,” and only one, KBAY San Francisco, played it more than once (two spins), for a total of nine early plays at the format, according to Mediabase. No stations on the country chart’s panel, which ranges from 145-to-150 stations, played “16 Carriages” in that span. Overall, “Texas Hold ‘Em” received over 200 all-format plays, largely on pop radio, in that stretch, while “16 Carriages” drew just a handful of plays. Neither song registered enough plays through Monday to appear on Billboard’s 60-position Country Airplay chart.
The situation at country radio may change, however. On Tuesday afternoon (Feb. 13), Columbia officially serviced “Texas Hold ‘Em” to country radio, whereas it had previously been sent to other formats, according to a source. Country radio has traditionally been reluctant to play songs that aren’t serviced to them or then actively promoted by the label. The two songs are part of Renaissance Act II coming from Beyoncé on March 29. Beyoncé has flirted with country music before, releasing “Daddy Lessons” on 2016’s Lemonade and playing the track with the Dixie Chicks (now The Chicks) on that year’s CMA Awards. That song was not actively worked to country radio, according to a Billboard story at the time, and did not chart at country radio, though it did reach No. 41 on the Hot 100.
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Bo Matthews, programming director of Alpha Media’s KBAY, which played “Texas Hold ‘Em” twice on Monday and continues to play it, says listener reaction has been “split.” He says, “I think it’s different to hear Beyoncé on a country radio station. We’re going to play it more and see if it the audience likes it and let them allow to be the decider as to whether or not it continues to be on the playlist.”
KBAY began playing “Texas Hold ‘Em” before Sony Music serviced to country radio, so Matthews grabbed the edit (which bleeps out the word “b—-”) from one of KBAY’s sister stations playing it, had KBAY’s midday host add it and asked listeners to weigh in. “It’s one of the biggest celebrities in the world doing a country song and I think that’s exciting for the format,” he says.
On Tuesday, the Austin American-Stateman ran a news story based on a social media post claiming country station KYKC in Ada, Oklahoma, flat-out rejected a request to play “Texas Hold ‘Em.” The story included a screenshot of a post from X (formerly Twitter) user @jussatto, who said he had requested the station play the song and received the following response, “Hi, we do not play Beyonce on KYKC as we are a country music station.” Another fan posted another response from the KYKC, saying it will “happily play the song when it gets high enough on the chart.”
These claims immediately sparked a broader online debate over whether country stations would play the song. On Tuesday afternoon, the station, which is not a Mediabase reporter, posted on Facebook that there were “lots of calls coming in” for the song and posted a log showing “Texas Hold ‘Em” played at 2:28 p.m. CT, sandwiched between Zach Bryan’s “Tishomingo” and Carrie Underwood’s “Wasted.”
A source at the station, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, told Billboard that the initial email response posted on X was from the station’s general manager, who did not know that Beyoncé had released two new country songs. KYKC’s sister Top 40 station had already played the song, and while the country station tends not to add songs until they are in the top 30 on Mediabase, “based on the number of calls we got in, we realized we needed to add it to the country station,” the source says. The song is now in the station’s system and it will continue to play it.
CMT immediately added “Texas Hold ‘Em” to its branded streaming stations and anticipates playing a video once one is released. A number of streaming services, including Spotify and Apple Music have also added it to their playlists. The song is currently on Spotify’s Hot Country playlist and it is No. 1 on iTunes’ Top 100 Songs chart, with “16 Carriages” at No. 2. Neither song appears on iTunes Top 100 Country Song chart, which is dominated by songs from Toby Keith’s catalog, following his death Feb. 5.
Beyoncé is just one of several pop artists planning to release country projects, including Post Malone and Lana Del Rey. Ed Sheeran told Billboard that he’d like to make a country album and a country project recorded by Brian Wilson in the ‘70s, is finally coming out next year, according to Rolling Stone.
Audacy and iHeartRadio country executives did not respond to request for comment. Beyoncé’s representative declined to any answer questions about the releases and the plan at radio.
Assistance on this story provided by Gary Trust.
Spurred by Kip Moore‘s massive touring success in Cape Town and Pretoria last year, South Africa is set to launch what organizers are calling one of the largest country music festivals outside of the United States.
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Kip Moore and Zac Brown Band will headline the Cape Town Country Festival on Oct. 26-27 at Cape Town’s 60,000-capacity DHL Stadium, which has previously hosted concerts from stars like U2, Foo Fighters, Mariah Carey, Rhianna and Justin Bieber.
“I absolutely love Africa and try to visit every year,” Zac Brown said in a statement. “We’re so excited that we get to perform at South Africa’s first-ever country music festival in October.”
The lineup also highlights American musicians including Darius Rucker, Brothers Osborne, Cam, James Johnston, Morgan Wade and Craig Morgan, as well as 10 local South African artists including Ricus Nel, Riaan Benade, Demi-Lee Moore, Juan Boucher, Appel, Ruhan du Toit, Brendan Peyper, Ivan Roux, West and Cheree. Additionally, Roan Ash, who moved to Nashville in 2022, will return to his hometown for the inaugural festival.
Wimpie van der Sandt of Heroes Events, who is also a DJ at BOK Radio, is producing the Cape Town Country Festival, with Red Light Management’s Gaines Sturdivant, one of Moore’s managers, serving as an executive consultant.
Moore’s headlining slot on the festival follows his successful trio of shows in Cape Town and Pretoria in 2023, where Moore sold 44,000 tickets. Van der Sandt was also instrumental in bringing those shows to South Africa.
The origins of Moore’s involvement with the festival and in building his audience in South Africa reach back to 2020 when Van der Sandt was introduced to Moore’s second studio album, 2015’s Wild Ones. Van der Sandt put Moore’s song “Heart’s Desire” on the radio during primetime hours.
“He said it caught like wildfire and people started calling and emailing trying to figure out who it was,” Moore tells Billboard via phone. “Then he did a deep dive into all my records and started playing lots of album cuts that I’ve always wanted to be singles, like ‘That Was Us’ and ‘The Bull.’ We had hits over there that we never even played live, like ‘Hey Old Lover’ and ‘Tennessee Boy.’ So when we played in South Africa, it was unlike anything I’d ever felt from a crowd. It was magical. And it was all from this one guy taking a chance and spinning my records.”
“The idea [for Cape Town Country Festival] was born from the success we had with Kip. We knew the synergy between South African music and country music — that wasn’t a surprise,” Van der Sandt tells Billboard. “When we saw the success we had with Kip, we knew we had a market. In South Africa, on our radio stations, they are used to Don Williams and Kenny Rogers, older country music. There’s not a lot of radio stations that play country music. We sort of introduced them to the new country and it took off. There were a lot of people that were skeptical about it, and didn’t know what was going to happen.”
Moore adds, “The beauty of what Wimpie did is that he doesn’t have any gatekeepers he has to get through. If he decides he likes something, he’ll roll the dice, take a chance and play it. He’s a true music lover. He’s a prime example that radio can still lead the way — they don’t have to just find out what’s streaming and follow it.”
Moore worked with Van der Sandt and Sturdivant on imagining the lineup. “I brought up Brothers Osborne — because I felt like if people were responding to what I’m doing, they’ll respond to Brothers Osborne. Darius Rucker has played in South Africa before. I said I loved the rawness in Morgan Wade’s voice,” Moore says, noting their previous collaboration, “If I Was Your Lover,” and imagining that they might perform the song together during the festival. “We’re super excited about shining a light on South African artists.”
The festival further evolves Moore’s touring success in the area as well as the vital scene of both country music fans and artists in South Africa. In 2023, Apple Music launched the country music competition series My Kind of Country, which highlighted international competitors. Nearly half of the competitors — including the competition’s eventual winner — hailed from South Africa. Moore says that he and his fest co-organizers are “super excited about shining a light on South African artists.”
Van der Sandt tells Billboard that they have a three-year agreement with the venue, with aims toward making the festival an annual event, on the scale of country music festivals such as Europe’s C2C: Country 2 Country festival and the Tamworth Country Music Festival in New South Wales, Australia.
Tickets for the event go on sale Feb. 16 at ctcfest.net, and will include special payment plans, allowing attendees to purchase tickets and pay over three, six or eight months.