Hold your horses! Beyoncé has just revealed an exclusive limited edition album cover for her upcoming release Cowboy Carter LP, just one day after the album's classic artwork debuted.
On Wednesday, the 32-time Grammy winner took to her official Instagram page to share the alternate Cowboy Carter artwork — which is exclusively available for purchase through her official website e-shop.
For the new cover, Beyoncé strikes a statuesque pose on a small, gray platform as she stands completely naked with nothing but a cloth covering her body. Her hair is braided with red, white and beige beads, while the all-black background echoes the artwork for the standard rodeo cover with a queen nod and the 2022 artwork Renaissance album.
Yesterday (March 19), Queen Bey revealed the standard cover for cowboy carter, which shows the singer perched backwards on a white horse mid-gallop as she raises a cut-up American flag and wears red, white and blue pips and a cloth that reads the album's title.
The fact that the pageant sheet is a recurring pattern in both Cowboy Carter The album covers were not lost on eagle-eyed fans — especially because of the name printed on the sheet for the limited-edition cover. Instead of “Cowboy Carter,” this sheet reads “Beyincé,” a variant spelling of Tina Knowles' maiden name. While some social media commentators felt confused by the name, Knowles spoke at length about the history of her family's name, most recently during an appearance on Heather Thomson's In my heart podcast in 2020.
“A lot of people don't know that Beyoncé is my last name. It's my maiden name,” he told Thomson. “My name was Celestine Beyoncé, which at the time was not cool to have that weird name.”
According to Knowles, an entrepreneur and fashion designer in her own right, she is one of the few people in her family with the spelling of “Beyoncé” due to a clerical error on many of their birth certificates. Her brother and his children, including award-winning songwriter Angie Beyincé, spell their last name with an “I” instead of an “O.”
“I think me and my brother Skip were the only two who had BEYONCE,” he continues. “Because we asked my mother when I was growing up, I said: Why is my brother's name spelled BEYINCE? You know, it's all these different letters.' And my mom's response to me was, “that's what they put on your birth certificate.” Knowles continued to think she asked her mother to demand correction, but the reality of the time was that “black people didn't get birth certificates.”
New Cowboy Carter The album cover brings Beyoncé's dedication to her family's legacy – which she sings about on the Billboard Hot 100 hit “16 Carriages” (No. 38) – full circle. Now, both her married name (Carter, via husband Shawn “Jay-Z” Carter) and her mother's maiden name are represented in the artwork for her upcoming album.
This isn't the first time Beyoncé has incorporated her family names into her ventures. In 2006, she and her mother started House of Deréon, a clothing line named after her grandmother's maiden name. Seven years later, she did the world tour Mrs. Carter Show to support her Billboard 200-topping 4 and titled LPs, and in 2016, she launched Ivy Park, a sportswear line, the name of which is partially inspired by her daughter, Blue Ivy Carter.
In addition to sharing the new Cowboy Carter The album cover, Beyoncé too shared some snapshots from her and Jay-Z's exclusive annual Gold Party in celebration of the Oscars. Among the photos was a royal photo of her mother, an adorable photo of the “Crazy In Love” power couple cuddling up to each other, and plenty of great moves featuring yet another western-inspired outfit from Queen Bey.
Cowboy Carter —which includes “16 Carriages” and the Hot Country Songs chart-topper “Texas Hold 'Em” — hits digital streaming platforms March 29.
Check out the limited edition Cowboy Carter The album cover below:
from our partners at https://www.billboard.com/music/country/beyonce-limited-edition-cowboy-carter-cover-beyince-1235637421/
