Beyoncé’s “Cowboy Carter” is a game changer for Blacks in country music, says writer Alice Randall, who’s been in the business for 41 years.
Over a long career in music, I’ve known the profound alienation one feels as an unacknowledged member of the country music family. I first experienced it when I showed up in Nashville years ago as a 23-year-old country music songwriter, one of very few Black people working in the genre at the time. I felt the same way a dozen years later — even after having “made it” with a number one song on the country charts but not always getting the acceptance of my White peers.
My dad made sure I knew that Anna Records was co-founded by Anna Gordy — a woman — a year before Motown’s historic founding. Black Detroit was fixated on R&B, and while friends and family suspected I might pursue a career in music, no one thought it would be in Nashville. But for some reason I can’t fully explain, country music was always a thing for me — it was a passion I shared with my mother, aunt and grandmother, and it feels like it was always my destiny.
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