According to Rolling Stone, Beyonce has made history by becoming the first Black woman artist to top Billboard’s Hot Country Songs chart with her song “Texas Hold ‘Em,” which also landed on number two on the Hot 100. Billboard has mentioned that “Texas Hold ‘Em” dethroned Zach Bryan and Kacey Musgraves’s “I Remember Everything,” which has spent 20 weeks at number one on the country chart and topped the Hot 100 this past year.
Beyonce‘s latest tune has received 19.2 million streams last week along with 39,000 traditional sales (per Luminate,) as the Beyhive looked to push the song up the charts. “Texas Hold ‘Em” has also gotten 4.8 million audience impressions from the radio. “16 Carriages,” Beyoncé’s other country song, hit number nine on Hot Country Songs. The song has 10.3 million streams, 14,000 sales and 90,000 radio impressions.
When Beyonce surprised everyone by releasing “Texas Hold ‘Em” and “16 Carriages” during the Super Bowl, fans and industry insiders speculated that the music would be embraced by the country music industry. Beyoncé’s record label Columbia announced last week that it officially promoted “Texas Hold ‘Em” to country radio and the song became the singer’s first ever entry on the Country Airplay chart, by debuting at 54.
Beyonce is not the first woman of color in country music, as other artists like Mickey Guyton and Brittney Spencer have found success in recent years, while Linda Martell blazed the trail as the first Black female solo artist to find success in the genre 50 years ago. But as chart history shows, country remains overwhelmingly white and prominently male.
Despite a handful of songwriters like Alice Randall and Tayla Parx with Number One co written songs, no Black woman songwriter had ever solely written a Number One country song until this year, when Luke Combs had a hit with Tracy Chapman’s “Fast Car.”
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