Last night was the premiere of Tyler Perry’s Mea Culpa, which stars Kelly Rowland. Beyoncé went to the premiere to support her, along with Jay Z, Miss Tina, and Angie Beyince.
Bey and Jay skipped the red carpet, but Queen Bey still let her support of her best friend be known.
The premiere also brought out Michelle Williams and Sherri Shepherd, as well as Tyler Perry and Rowland’s co-star, Trevante Rhodes.
After Beyoncé announced new country music during the Super Bowl, I messaged Lainey that I couldn’t wait to watch country radio cope with it. And lo, within the first days of her new tracks being available, country stations were getting hammered by the Beyhive for not immediately playing her new music. As Lainey put it, Beyoncé told country music about itself.
One of the stations that landed in hot water is KYKC in Oklahoma, which is owned by SCORE Broadcasting. A rep from SCORE claimed that KYKC’s general manager, Roger Harris, “was removed and didn’t know” that Beyoncé had a new country track. My only problem with that is that Beyoncé announced her new country music during the SUPER BOWL, which is a huge event anyway but the 2024 edition is literally the largest single-network broadcast of all time now. I don’t believe you! I don’t believe you didn’t see the same commercial as the rest of us!
Beyoncé will show up for her friends to support their projects, but just by entering a space she can force a conversation for everyone else, too. Even the success of something like “Old Town Road” didn’t really move the needle in terms of opening up country radio to other Black artists and music. Like the first time I heard Ghost Hounds I immediately dropped everything to download all of their music I could, but then when I was in Oklahoma, no one I talked to had heard of them. They opened for The Rolling Stones! But no one in country radio, er, country had any idea who they are. And, well, lead singer Tre Nation is Black, so I wasn’t surprised, but still disappointed that in 2023 Black artists still struggled to get airplay, despite so many instances of controversy over the years.
Country radio, it seems, is determined to learn nothing. So hopefully, Beyoncé can take her almighty cultural weedwacker to the problem and clear some space for other Black country artists, too.
