Beyonce reveals ‘Cowboy Carter’ was initially supposed to be released before ‘Renaissance’

The internet is buzzing over the release of Beyoncé’s latest album “Cowboy Carter.”

With her rendition of Dolly Parton’s classic “Jolene” — and a feature from the country queen herself — as well as collaborations with Willie Nelson, Miley Cyrus and Post Malone, many are already praising this project as the Grammy’s next Album of the Year.

Now that it’s out, the singer is pulling back the curtain on the creative process.

“My process is that I typically have to experiment,” she said in a press release. “I enjoy being open to have the freedom to get all aspects of things I love out and so I worked on many songs.  I recorded probably 100 songs. Once that is done, I am able to put the puzzle together and realize the consistencies and the common themes, and then create a solid body of work.”

As for the album’s title, she revealed “‘Cowboy Carter’ was birthed from these experiences and inspired by the original Black cowboys of the American West.”

“The word cowboy itself was used in a derogatory way to describe the former slaves as ‘boys,’ who were the most skilled and had the hardest jobs of handling horses and cattle, alike,” the release explained. “In destroying the negative connotation, what remains is the strength and resiliency of these men who were the true definition of Western fortitude.”

The project took the artist over five years to create. She said “it’s been really great to have the time and the grace to be able to take my time with it.”

She also revealed that the album was set to be released much earlier, but things changed due to the pandemic.

“I was initially going to put ‘Cowboy Carter’ out first, but with the pandemic, there was too much heaviness in the world. We wanted to dance. We deserved to dance. But I had to trust God’s timing.”

In 2022, she released the first act of her trilogy, which was the dance music-filled “Renaissance.”

“Creating this album allowed me a place to dream and to find escape during a scary time for the world,” she wrote on social media amid the release of “Renaissance.” “It allowed me to feel free and adventurous in a time when little else was moving. My intention was to create a safe place, a place without judgment. A place to be free of perfectionism and overthinking. A place to scream, release, feel freedom.”

While Act I is about “rebirth,” Act II’s “Cowboy Carter” is defined as “a declarative frequency and academic shift, as the world prepares to shift again, that redefines and rebuilds what is Country and Americana, and who gets to be included.”

“Cowboy Carter” is defined as a “cornucopia of sounds that Beyoncé loves, and grew up listening to, between visits and eventually performances at the Houston Rodeo – Country, original Rhythm & Blues, Blues, Zydeco, and Black Folk.”

The incorporated “authentic sounds” like a harmonica, washboard, banjo, handclaps and even the singer’s nails as percussion.

“The joy of creating music is that there are no rules,” she said. “The more I see the world evolving the more I felt a deeper connection to purity. With artificial intelligence and digital filters and programming, I wanted to go back to real instruments, and I used very old ones. I didn’t want some layers of instruments like strings, especially guitars, and organs perfectly in tune. I kept some songs raw and leaned into folk. All the sounds were so organic and human, everyday things like the wind, snaps and even the sound of birds and chickens, the sounds of nature.”

Each song is identified as “its own version of a reimagined Western film.”

While in the recording booth, the singer had movies like “Five Fingers For Marseilles,” “Urban Cowboy,” “The Hateful Eight, “Space Cowboys,” “The Harder They Fall” and “Killers of the Flower Moon” playing on a screen.

“This body of work undulates from singing cowboy and Blaxploitation to Spaghetti westerns and fantasy with Beyoncé weaving between personal experiences, honoring Black history, to exaggerated character building,” the release continued to explain.

For those who have yet to listen to the album, the 32-time-Grammy winner had this to say:
“I think people are going to be surprised because I don’t think this music is what everyone expects, but it’s the best music I’ve ever made.”

“Cowboy Carter” is available now wherever you get your music.

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