Beyoncé‘s Cowboy Carter album drops on Friday, March 29 — and just days before the highly anticipated release, the superstar has shared the official tracklist.
During the Super Bowl on Feb. 11, the one and only Queen Bey shocked fans by unexpectedly dropping two country-based singles, “Texas Hold ‘Em” and “16 Carriages.” Unsurprisingly, the football game quickly took a backseat to the exciting news for the BeyHive as it became the launching pad for “Act II” of the singer’s three-act project, which began with Renaissance.
It didn’t take long for Beyoncé to climb the charts and make history as the first Black woman to top the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart on Feb. 25 when “Texas Hold ‘Em” hit No. 1 while “16 Carriages” made it to No. 9, Billboard reported.
Fast forward to March 27, and the 31-time Grammy winner’s latest Instagram post appears to be the official unveiling of the Cowboy Carter tracklist. The song generating the most excitement across social media is “Jolene,” which many believe is a cover of country icon Dolly Parton‘s 1973 single. Meanwhile, “Smoke Hour” is a possible duet with Willie Nelson. Variety also reports that the album is believed to potentially have a Travis Scott collaboration.
Whilst announcing Cowboy Carter on March 19, Beyoncé teased there will be a “few surprises on the album” and that she “collaborated with some brilliant artists who I deeply respect.”
Elsewhere on the tracklist, “The Linda Martell Show” seemingly pays tribute to country music pioneer Linda Martell, the first Black woman to make it as a successful commercial country artist, as well as the first Black solo artist to play the Grand Ole Opry, according to Variety.
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Cowboy Carter follows 2022’s Renaissance album, the first part of the three-part series of project. The accompanying tour grossed $579 million, making it the “highest-grossing tour by a female artist in history,” per Entertainment Weekly; the film adaption of the tour raked in just under $44 million.
As Blavity reported, Beyoncé clarified via Instagram that Cowboy Carter, which has been five years in the making, “ain’t a Country album” but a “Beyoncé album.”
“It was born out of an experience that I had years ago where I did not feel welcomed…and it was very clear that I wasn’t. But, because of that experience, I did a deeper dive into the history of Country music and studied our rich musical archive,” she wrote at the time. “It feels good to see how music can unite so many people around the world, while also amplifying the voices of some of the people who have dedicated so much of their lives educating on our musical history.”
Who else is counting down the days until Cowboy Carter drops?
