White Identity Politics

Just by being Black, a woman, popular and impervious to country music’s gatekeepers, Beyoncé has made a political album. Puzzling over who is country enough to sing love songs to wheat fields and big trucks only seems prosaic. Big Country — the Nashville-controlled, pop-folk music that commodifies rural American fantasies — is the cultural arm of white grievance politics. In 1974, President Richard Nixon described the genre as being “as native as anything American we could find.” That must have been a shock to actual Native Americans. But the message was not for them. It was for the white Southern voters Nixon needed to win over amid massive resistance to Black enfranchisement. Today’s Republican Party continues that tradition. Embracing country music is a loyalty test for conservative politicians and right-wing pundits whose career ambitions align with white identity politics. Beyoncé singing country music in this political climate was always going to cause a stir.

Opinion | Beyoncé’s ‘Cowboy Carter’ Asks, and Answers, a Crucial Question in Her Latest Album - The New York Times