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\n\tBeyonc\u00e9<\/a> made history Sunday night (Feb. 2) when Cowboy Carter<\/em> won the Grammy for best country album, making the superstar the first Black artist to win in the category since it was reintroduced in 1995, after a nearly three-decade absence.<\/p>\n \n\tEarlier in the evening, she also captured the award for best country duo\/group performance for \u201cII Most Wanted\u201d with Miley Cyrus, which was the first time a Black lead artist had won that award since The Pointer Sisters in 1975. Bey capped the evening by winning the night\u2019s biggest prize, album of the year, an honor that had previously eluded her during her 25-year career as a member of Destiny\u2019s Child and a solo artist, despite winning more Grammys than anyone in history.<\/p>\n \n\tMany in the country music community are applauding Beyonc\u00e9\u2019s country wins and hope they will help lift up other Black artists in country music today, many of whom have been unable to get a foothold on radio or gain much traction within the genre.<\/p>\n \n\tBeyonc\u00e9\u2019s wins for best country album and album of the year are overall wins for country music, says Big Machine Label Group founder\/president\/CEO Scott Borchetta<\/strong>. \u201cBeyonc\u00e9 made a brilliant album that was absolutely worthy of album of the year,\u201d he says. \u201cEvery event and moment like this is a move forward and continues to widen the aperture and acceptance of what country music is and can be.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tWillie \u201cProphet\u201d Stiggers<\/strong>, co-founder of the Black Music Action Coalition, agrees, telling Billboard<\/em>: \u201cCowboy Carter<\/em> pushed country music\u2019s genre redlining into the public zeitgeist \u2013 but as Beyonc\u00e9 herself has mentioned, Black artists and writers have been pushing against Music Row\u2019s gates for decades. Cowboy Carter<\/em> is such a powerful body of work that it finally broke some long-held barriers. [Recording Academy CEO] Harvey Mason jr. and the academy also deserve acknowledgement for working intentionally to foster a younger, more diverse voting membership, which helped to bring some of those barriers down. However, it\u2019s important that the industry \u2013 and Music Row specifically \u2013 understand that this moment, this album, is a beginning, not a destination. \u2026 \u2018Genre\u2019 is still too often used as coded language for race, and it\u2019s far past time for that to change.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tOthers see Beyonc\u00e9\u2019s win as an isolated victory. \u201cI love that Beyonc\u00e9 won for best country album and [album of the year] for Cowboy Carter<\/em> last night at the Grammys, but it\u2019s a win for Beyonce, not necessarily for Black artists in country music,\u201d says Cameo Carlson<\/strong>, CEO of artist development\/management services company Mtheory and manager of Black country singer Mickey Guyton,<\/a> who received three Grammy nominations at the 2022 Grammy Awards but took home none.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cThe fact that Beyonce\u2019s album wasn\u2019t even nominated for other Nashville or country-centric awards, like the CMA Awards, is indicative of the work that still needs to be done in Nashville and in country music,\u201d Carlson continues. \u201cThe Grammys are a global award for all intents and purpose; the hardcore country awards \u2014 and the large body of people that make up the voting bloc for those awards \u2014 did not embrace Beyonce or Cowboy Carter<\/em>, decrying [the album] as \u2018not really country\u2019 or making the excuse that she didn\u2019t \u2018play the Nashville game\u2019 by coming and investing time in the country music community or in Nashville.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tBeyonce had already rewritten the country rulebook with the album before her Grammy victories. Following its March 29, 2024, release, Cowboy Carter<\/em> debuted at No. 1 on Billboard<\/em>\u2019s Top Country Albums<\/a> chart, making her the first Black woman to reach the pinnacle, dating back to the chart\u2019s January 1964 inception. She also became the first Black woman to top Billboard<\/em>\u2019s Hot Country Songs<\/a> chart with \u201cTexas Hold \u2018Em,\u201d which stayed at the top for 10 weeks. However, the song peaked at No. 33 on the Country Airplay<\/a> chart. \u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tWhile, as Carlson mentions, there had been much talk about the Grammy-winning Cowboy Carter<\/em> not receiving a CMA Award nomination for album of the year (or any CMA Award nominations), such an occurrence is hardly rare. There have been more than a dozen records that have won the Grammy for best country album since the Recording Academy brought the category back in 1995 that did not receive a CMA nomination for album of the year, much less a win, including Shania Twain\u2019s The Woman in Me<\/em> (1996), the then-named Dixie Chicks<\/a>\u2019 Wide Open Spaces<\/em> (1999) and Tanya Tucker\u2019s While I\u2019m Living<\/em> (2020). The Grammy voters tend to nominate a wider variety of albums, often including legends who no longer receive commercial airplay, artists who belong to the broader country genre but aren\u2019t in the mainstream, or artists who don\u2019t necessarily, as Carlson said, \u201cplay the game.\u201d (In addition to Cowboy Carter<\/em>, the only country album to win the all-genre Grammy for album of the year and not receive a CMA nomination is The Chicks\u2019 Taking the Long Way <\/em>in 2006, which came out after much of the country community disavowed the trio for comments Natalie Maines made about then-President George Bush.)<\/p>\n \n\tThe CMA declined to comment for this story.<\/p>\n \n\tScott Stem<\/strong>, manager for Scotty McCreery at Triple 8 Management, doesn\u2019t see the disparity as a bad thing. \u201cI don\u2019t think all the awards have to be the same \u2014 one artist can win the Grammy, one artist can win the CMA Award, one artist can win the ACM Award, and one artist can win the American Music Award,\u201d he says. \u201cIt only widens the pot if more artists and their work are recognized instead of it being the same artists on each show.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tUnlike the CMA and ACM Awards, which draw from primarily the country community and may include industry members not involved in the creative process such as radio executives as voters, the 13,000 Grammy voters come from all genres and must be involved in the creative music-making process. Grammy voters are allowed to vote in up to 10 categories across three fields in addition to the General Field categories, meaning that non-country voters could choose to vote in the country field in order to support Beyonc\u00e9. Beyonc\u00e9 won none of the other Grammys she was nominated for in such genre fields as pop, rap or Americana, possibly indicating that non-country voters were inclined to vote for her in country but not spend their limited votes for her in other areas.<\/p>\n \n\tNot everyone felt the win was deserved, with some questioning whether the album belonged in the country category at all after Beyonc\u00e9 herself said in March, \u201cThis ain\u2019t a country album, it\u2019s a Beyonc\u00e9 album.\u201d But there was no denying its homage to country\u2019s Black roots with the inclusion of Black country pioneer Linda Martell and country\u2019s history with the participation of Willie Nelson and Dolly Parton, as well as a nod to its future by including rising Black country artists like Shaboozey, Willie Jones, Brittney Spencer and Reyna Roberts.<\/p>\n \n\tBig & Rich\u2019s John Rich<\/a> posited in a post on X<\/a> that her win was a result of Sony Music swaying the vote, instead of merit. \u201cFolks are asking me \u2018how do music award shows work?\u2019\u201d Rich wrote. \u201cLabels\/publishers all have blocks of votes. They make deals with each other \u2018you vote for mine, we\u2019ll vote for yours\u2019 type thing. It has ZERO to do with who made the best music, thus, Beyonce with \u2018Country album of the year.\u2019 Nice, right? The same thing is true with the CMA\u2019s, ACM\u2019s, Billboard, etc\u2026all work exactly the same. Last night, the Grammy\u2019s [sic] outed themselves in a big way.\u201d [Editor\u2019s note: The Billboard Music Awards are determined solely by <\/em>Billboard chart performance, not a voting body.]<\/em><\/p>\n \n\tAs the current presidential administration erases diversity, equality and inclusion (DEI) initiatives, many of which came to be following George Floyd\u2019s murder in 2020, some hope Beyonc\u00e9\u2019s win will show Nashville that listeners want to hear from more than the white men who dominate country music, especially mainstream country radio.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cBeyonc\u00e9 will move on and make another killer Beyonc\u00e9 record in any genre she wants to, while Black and non-white country artists will continue to struggle to be heard and supported,\u201d Carlson says. \u201cLabels and the country infrastructure need to continue to invest in these artists, need to continue to invest in DEI programs, and support programs like Equal Access that are out here doing the work every day to make sure that Beyonc\u00e9 is only the first Black artist to win a country album of the year Grammy, but certainly not the last.\u201d<\/p>\n