Beyoncé‘s Cowboy Carter reimagined country music through her own musical lens. Now, other Black musicians in the genre — from Brittney Spencer and Tanner Adell to Joy Oladokun, BRELAND, and more — are painting selections from throughout her catalogue with their own rustic palettes for Apple Music’s Nashville Sessions: Beyoncé Covered collection.
“Beyonce has opened a door that’s going to be really hard to close,” singer and songwriter Tiera Kennedy told Apple Music. The Alabama native reimagined “1+1” for the covers collection, blending country with R&B. Beyoncé did the same on Cowboy Carter when she took the Beatles’ “Blackbird” and shaped it into “Blackbiird,” with features from rising country stars Kennedy, Adell, Spencer, and Reyna Roberts.
Adell and Spencer both recorded music for Beyoncé Covered, taking on “Drunk in Love” and “Irreplaceable,” respectively. “When I first heard that Beyonce was making a country album, I felt…ready,” Spencer told Apple Music. Her approach to “Irreplaceable” brings the record full circle in the sense that it was originally written with stylistic inspiration from country music. With Adell, “Drunk in Love” takes on a new shape while retaining its sensuality, dressing up its original storytelling in a new sound. “Country music to me means family,” she explained. “And country music lets you tell your story.”
Approaching the genre from the perspective of a country artist raised in New Jersey, BRELAND highlighted the gospel influences already inherent in Beyoncé’s “Sandcastles.” The musician, who has also flipped classic hip-hop records in his own music, shared: “I think people should be able to express themselves however they want.” Oladokun, who shared a cover of the Cowboy Carter single “II Most Wanted,” echoed this sentiment, sharing: “Audiences of country music are bigger than we thought and they don’t look like we thought.”
Madeline Edwards rounds out the collection of covers with her version of the Beyoncé classic “Halo.”
Before Beyoncé released Cowboy Carter, she released a crucial clarification about the primary goal she was chasing as she kicked down the genre’s doors. “This ain’t a country album. This is a Beyoncé album,” the musician stated. “The criticisms I faced when I first entered this genre forced me to propel past the limitations that were put on me. Act II is a result of challenging myself, and taking my time to bend and blend genres together to create this body of work.”