Beyoncé’s representative has defended the singer after Erykah Badu questioned her look in her Cowboy Carter album artwork.
The music superstar unveiled the artwork for her upcoming country album this week, with one image showing her posing naked with a sash covering her modesty. In the photo, she wears her hair in a braided style with red and white beads at the end of her fringe.
Erykah, who often sports a braided hairstyle with a beaded fringe, posted the artwork on her Instagram Stories and simply wrote, “Hmmm.”
The R&B singer then took to X, formerly known as Twitter, to ask Beyoncé’s husband Jay-Z to intervene.
“To Jay Z . Say somethin Jay. You gone let this woman and these bees do this to me ?? (laughing emoji),” she wrote, seemingly claiming that the Crazy in Love hitmaker copied her look.
While Beyoncé and Jay-Z did not respond to Erykah’s criticism, her longtime publicist Yvette Noel-Schure addressed it on Instagram by posting a montage of Beyoncé rocking a similar hairstyle throughout her career, including back in her Destiny’s Child days.
“She slays. She slays. Now. Then. Always. act ii COWBOY CARTER 3.29 #criticswithoutcredentials,” she wrote in the caption.
Erykah isn’t the only one to criticise the Cowboy Carter art. Rapper Azealia Banks went on a lengthy tirade about the images on Instagram on Wednesday, describing the artwork as “white women cosplay”.
Cowboy Carter will be released on 29 March.
